The Untouchables

• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Crime
• Movie Type: Police Detective Film, Crime Thriller
• Themes: Obsessive Quests, Criminal's Revenge
• Director: Brian De Palma
• Main Cast: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro
• Release Year: 1987
• Country: US
• Run Time: 119 minutes
• MPAA Rating: R

Plot

Like the TV series that shared the same title, The Untouchables (1987) was an account of the battle between gangster Al Capone and lawman Eliot Ness, this time in the form of a feature film boasting big stars, a big budget, and a script from respected playwright David Mamet. Kevin Costner stars as Ness, a federal agent who has come to Chicago during the Prohibition Era, when corruption in the local police department is rampant. His mission is to put crime lord Capone (Robert De Niro) out of business, but Capone is so powerful and popular that Ness is not taken seriously by the law or the press. One night, discouraged, he meets a veteran patrolman, Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), and discovers that the acerbic Irishman is the one honest man he's been seeking. Malone has soon helped Ness recruit a gunslinger rookie, George Stone (Andy Garcia), and, joined by nebbish accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), the men doggedly pursue Capone and his illegal interests. At first a laughingstock, Ness soon has Capone outraged over his and Malone's sometimes law-bending tactics, and the vain mobster strikes back in vicious style. Ultimately, it is the most unexpected and minor of crimes, tax evasion, which proves Capone's undoing. All of the credits for The Untouchables boasted big names, including music from Ennio Morricone and costumes by Giorgio Armani. Director Brian De Palma continued his tradition of including a homage to past masters of the cinema with a taut stairway shoot-out reminiscent of a similar sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Review

Brian De Palma's strikingly authentic re-creation of 1930s gangster films and Prohibition-era Chicago is dominated by the performance of Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winner Sean Connery as Jim Malone. Malone's mentorship of Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner), guiding him from his initial, Dudley Do Right-esque altruism to a more grimly realistic law-enforcement agent, gives the film its emotional anchor. Costner's white-bread Ness and De Niro's grandiose Capone pale in comparison to the charismatic Connery. Ennio Morricone's lush score and Stephen H. Burum's classy, high-gloss cinematography may romanticize the oft-gruesome violence, but both are well-suited to the approach taken by screenwriter David Mamet, who attempts to raise the pulp features from the original TV drama to high art. The film climaxes in a Union Station shoot-out that is De Palma's stylish homage to the "Odessa steps" sequence in director Sergei Eisenstein's seminal Battleship Potemkin. ~ Dan Jardine, All Movie Guide