The Untouchables (1987) -2026 Re-Visit

 

This will be a perfunctory entry since I've written about seeing the film three times in the last 3 years. This is the fourth year in a row that we've had an opportunity to see The Untouchables on the big screen, like several other films that I love. I never miss an opportunity to see these movies in a theater with an audience. So much of this film works so well because it is designed as a crowd pleaser. The combination of the cast, the director and the screenwriter pretty much ensures that the movie is going to be solid.

Famously this was Sean Connery's Academy award-winning performance, and every time I watch the movie I remember why. He's great in this film. Connery however is not the only one who is terrific, Robert De Niro chews the scenery as Al Capone, Kevin Costner is in the process of turning himself into a movie star with this film, and Charles Martin Smith steals every scene that he is in. It really is a delightful film if you can use the word delightful to describe a gangster film featuring a variety of murders. In addition to the scene stealing Smith, Billy Drago plays Frank Nitty as a stone cold zombie murderer that everybody will be happy to see take a dive off the roof.

Obviously inspired by true events and just as obviously plotted by a screenwriter who needed to tell a story without being true to those events, David Mamet gives us a diverting buddy cop movie, with over the top bad guys, and a clever plot, that doesn't quite hit the ending but at that point nobody cares. Ennio Morricone, delivers one of his best scores for an American-made film. 

I appreciate the fact that the high living gangsters could all afford Armani suits. The period detail when it comes to the automobiles is also quite excellent, and the production design of Eliot Ness's home and the hotel rooms that Al Capone occupies is exquisite. 

There are three fantastic action set pieces that illustrate mastery of the cinema. DePalma stages a western style raid on the border between Canada and the US, with Mounties and gangsters on either side of a bridge. All of our four protagonists get an opportunity to shine in this sequence. The most famous scene in the movie, inspired by the “Battleship Potemkin”, is the shootout on the stairs of the train station. The tension builds with the woman trying to move her luggage and pram up the staircase as Eliot Ness looks on watching for his targets. DePalma goes into slow motion for the actual shootout, and that allows us to see how it all comes together brilliantly. Elliott Ness’s command to Stone" take him", lets us know that the evolution of the crime fighter is complete. We get one last great piece with Ness chasing Frank Nitty up to the courthouse roof finally, apprehending him and then the dispensing Justice with a great quip that evokes a horrifying laugh.

Let's face it, this movie is just terrific.

The Untouchables (1987) Revisit

 

This movie is as hypnotic as any DePalma film, with the added advantage that it is straightforward and to the point. Maybe it is just good guys versus the bad guys, but when the Good Guys are lead by Kevin Costner and Sean Connery, I don't know how anyone can turn away. Throw in DeNiro as Al Capone and you have a heavyweight fight that would break pay per view records if it were a boxing match.

Even before the first scene, the movie is pulling you in with a haunting and propulsive theme played over artistically rendered Titles. Ennio Morricone was Oscar Nominated for the score of this film and it should have been his. The background themes are  great at accentuating the heroes in their glory moments, and the action scenes are supplemented with exciting motifs that come up in various sections of the film. There are plenty of opportunities for the music to make an impact on you.

The botched opening raid is a nice way to set our expectations at a different place. Later, when the group of Untouchable Law Enforcement agents swoop down on smugglers at the Canadian border, we are amped up to see the results after the earlier futile effort. The key set piece is the train station shootout with the slow build and all the closeups. DePalma has studied the Serio Leone films meticulously and lets those beats play out at the same agonizing and tension filled pace as we got in the Spaghetti Westerns. Every complication adds to the suspense, every effort to get the accountant and keep him alive makes our anticipation of Andy Garcia as Stone worthwhile. Costner plays it so cool in this scene in comparison to some of the early moments of the film. You can see the character arc in his demeanor here.

Of course Sean Connery is the lynchpin for the film. His world weary folksiness and Chicago cantankerous nature were a perfect realization of the character. The combination of his story and that of Charles Martin Smith gives license to Eliot Ness to get a little dirty, in spite of his white knight image. Charlie Martin Smith and Billy Drago are the unsung heroes of the cast, one showing the exuberance of a puppy dog and the other reflecting the darkest elements of the Capone organization. Maybe Capone doesn't go flying to his death, but we know that his empire has crumbled because of the turning of his own tactics against him.

Filmed in the 80s, DePalma and Company make Chicago look like fifty years earlier, and the soundstage sets match up so well with the exteriors, you can believe it was all shot in the time and place depicted. This movie is just a lot of fun. Fidelity to the real story is lacking, and the conclusion in the court is a bit baffling, but you won't care because everything else is so rousing.