Scarface (1983)
Al Pacino, Michelle Pfiffer, Steven Bauer; d. Brian DePama; D-

It's only been recently that I've started to become interested in gangster films. Before, when I heard the words "gangster films," I thought of poor, two-dementional movies about wild gangsters who can do nothing but do crime and kill. But seeing such well-crafted gangster films like The Godfather, Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Casino, has given me faith in the gangster genre. Here are films that have depth, substance, superb scripts, and excellent direction. Films like Scarface are the ones that made me skeptical about the gangster genre. Films that are excessivley violent for no apparent reason than to show how cool its lead actor looks with a gun. Films that have basically no plot. Films that are predictable. Films with cardboard characters. Scarface is all of that, to excessive detail.

Al Pacino wastes his talent as Tony Montana, a Cuban political refugee who comes to Miami only to continue his life in crime. Tony is a power-hungry, crack-snorting freak who climbs the ladder of organized crime with his friend Manny (Steven Bauer). Tony gets in trouble with his mother (Miriam Colon), who spews out typical, supposedly profound statements to Tony, that only serve to show how Tony's power is also dustrictive. Tony spoils his yonger sister, Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), by giving her some money he's earned from being a gangster. She takes Tony's money and becomes a spoiled club hopper, angering Tony and providing us with some unintentionally funny moments of rage. Meanwhile, Tony and Manny are becoming full-blown drug lords, and leaving a trail of bodies behind them (including that of their former boss, which is conveinent since Tony's got the hots for his girl, Elvira, played by Michelle Pfiffer). The romance between Tony and Elvira bloom, in spite of Elvira's relationship with Tony's boss. But with him out of the way, Tony and Elvira get married and move in together in a lavish castle that's only rivaled by that of Charles Foster Kane. But, as you can predict, Tony's thirst for power leads to his distruction.

This may sound like a good plot but it's very thin. There are more bad scenes than there are fingers I can count on, and only the scenes with Tony and his family truly shine. If there had been more insight on Tony's relationship with his mother and sister, as well as making the relationships between Tony, Elvira, and Manny more complete, perhaps Tony would be more human instead of a "cock-a-roach." But Tony, like all of the characters in Scarface, is terribly underwritten. He has no true motives, and I find it hard to feel for him, no matter how much Pacino gets into his role. And gets into his role is exactly what Pacino does, but because his character is so poorly written, his performance suffers as a result. t's very hard to believe that Pacino is a Cuban because, not only his obvious Italian features, his accent his forced. Most of the Hispanic accents in this film make it seem that the entire cast got together and watched West Side Story. Michelle Pfiffer also gives a terrible performance. There's not much to delve into here. In fact, there's not too much to delve into with any character. The supporting cast all seem to blend into the background. What I found truly aggrivating about the film is the amount of crack that is snorted. It has nothing to do with any reservations against drugs, but it got truly annoying when it seemed all that the characters could do was snort crack. It seemed that was the only thing that Tony and Elvira could do. But more importantly, what was the point of it all? Unless the crack would have a significant part in one of the scenes in the movie, like in Goodfellas, there wasn't a point to have it around all of the time.

I never fully understood why people hated Brian DePalma so until I watched Scarface. After watching Obsession, I was left with somewhat of a sour taste in my mouth. It suffered from poor direction, and terrible and over the top performances. The only thing that saved it was the haunting Bernard Herrmann score. Unfortunatley, with Scarface, DePalma doesn't have an expert and genius film score composer, who was as much of a "film doctor" as Edith Head was a "dress doctor," to lean on. His poor direction is left bare, and is exposed more with a cheesy, synthezither-performed score. The lavish, elaborite sets are the only things noteworthy in the technical aspect of the film.

What I hate most of all about Scarface is that it fufills every prenotion I had about gangster films before I watched The Godfather. It's a pointless, plotless, moronic, idoitic, needlessly and exessively violent fantasy of the absurd with cardboard, psychotic gangsters who have nothing better to do with their time than shoot people. I'm only lucky to have watched this film when The Godfather came on later that day, restoring my faith in Al Pacino as an actor and the genre of the gangster film, which can, as I've seen with Scarface, go awry in the hands of the wrong person.

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2001