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Coster and Connery take on Capone in crime classic The Untouchables |
Director: Brian de Palma
Cast: Kevin Costner (Eliot Ness), Sean Connery (Jimmy
Malone), Andy Garcia (George Stone), Robert De Niro (Al Capone), Charles Martin
Smith (Oscar Wallace), Patricia Clarkson (Catherine Ness), Billy Drago (Frank
Nitti), Richard Bradford (Chief Mike Dorsett), Jack Kehoe (Walter Payne)
“What are you prepared to do!”
It’s the motto of this electric law-enforcement film, one of
those all-time classics that provides endlessly quotable lines and moments you can’t
forget. It’s crammed with iconic moments, from its brilliantly quotable
dialogue from David Mamet, via its wonderful music score, to its artful film
literacy and iconic performances. If there is an untouchable film, this one is
pretty close. I love it.
It’s 1930, prohibition is in full force and Chicago is ruled
by gangland kingpin Al Capone (Robert De Niro). Young Federal Officer Elliot
Ness (Kevin Costner) is thrown into Chicago to end Capone’s reign and stamp out
the illegal liquor business. Not surprisingly, it’s hard to know who to trust
in a town as stinking as this one, until a chance meeting with disillusioned
beat cop Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery) helps him find a group of people he can
trust – “Untouchables” who aren’t going to go on Capone’s payroll. But to bring
Capone down he’s going to have to embrace the “Chicago way” and start to bend
his strict moral code.
Listening to Brian de Palma talk about the making of the
movie, you can’t help but suspect he felt he was doing one for the suits rather
than one from the heart. Well perhaps he should do that more often, because The Untouchables is a lean, mean, hugely
entertaining action-adventure, that plays with genuine ideas and but also nails
every single moment. Every scene is shot with a confident, compelling swagger –
the sort of thing that reminds you what a conneseur of high-class pulp de Palma
can be. The Untouchables plays out
like a super-brainy graphic novel adaptation, and every scene sings. There is
barely a duff moment in there.
A lot of this comes straight from David Mamet’s brilliant
script. Really, with lines like this, moments as well-crafted as this,
characters as clearly, brilliantly defined as the ones on show here, you can’t
go wrong. Quotable lines fall from the actors’ lips like the gifts they are:
“He brings a knife, you bring a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you
send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago Way!” It’s dialogue like this
that just has ageless appeal, the sort of stuff you find yourself trying to
work into day-to-day conversation.
But Mamet’s script is also sharply clever. It swiftly lays
out at the start Ness’ moral compass, his code – and then, as the film
progresses, it cleverly shows the whys and wherefores for Ness compromising these.
Needless to say, the man at the end of the film is totally different from the bright-eyed
naïve agent we met at the start. Mamet also brilliantly works shades of grey
into all our heroes, while scripting some compelling moments of grandstanding
bastardy that an actor as marvellous as De Niro is just waiting to send to the
back of the net.
De Niro was of course the inevitable choice as Capone. Bob
Hoskins was contracted just in case De Niro said no (when told De Niro would be
taking the job but he would get a $20k pay-out for his time, Hoskins told de
Palma he’d be thrilled to hear about any other movies de Palma didn’t want him
to be in), but it had to be Bobby. The film drops Capone in at key moments: the
film opens with the swaggering bully delighted at holding court with English
newspapers while being shaved (de Palma’s camera draws down from an overhead
shot, like a spider descending from the ceiling, to reveal him in the barber’s
chair) – a flash of danger emerges when the barber slips and cuts Capone’s face
(de Niro’s flash of fury, followed by his decision to pardon – combined with
the barber’s terror – is perfect). Later Capone rages at Ness, hosts a very
messy dinner party with a baseball bat, and weeps at the theatre while a key
character bleeds to death at his home (a brilliant example of de Palma’s
mastery of B-movie cost cutting). He’s the perfect dark heart.
And opposite him you need a white knight – even if it a
white knight who is set to be sullied. I’m not sure Kevin Costner ever topped
his performance here, in the film c that made him a superstar overnight.
Looking like the perfect boy scout – his fresh faced earnestness is one of his
finest qualities – Costner also has a WASPish hardness under the surface. The
burning determination he has to destroy Capone, his disgust at the murder and
chaos Capone deals in, is never in doubt – just as his initial naïveté about how
to end Capone is all too clear. Costner masterfully shows how each event pushes
Ness a step or two further in bending his rules, to fight Capone’s ruthlessness
with ruthlessness of his own. “What are you prepared to do!” Malone asks him,
and the film is about Ness working out how far his moral compass can stretch. I
can’t think of many films that so completely and successfully have the lead
character change as much as Costner does here without it feeling rushed or
forced. It’s a wonderful performance.
But the film is stolen – and it’s no surprise, as he has the
showiest part, most of the best lines, and of course the movie-star cool – by
Connery. It’s easy to mock Connery’s blatantly Scottish Irish cop – he gives
the accent a go for his first scene, but promptly drops it. What Connery’s
performance is really all about is an old dog who never got a chance to do the
right thing, finally being given the licence, the support and the inspiration
from the younger man to clean up this filthy city. And Connery rages in the
film, a force of nature, the perfect mentor, the cop who against all initial expectations
is prepared to go through any and all risks to get Capone. He’s the samurai
beat cop, and Connery (Oscar-winning) growls through Mamet’s dialogue with all
the love of the seasoned pro letting rip. It’s an iconic performance – and led
to a five year purple patch of great films and roles for Connery.
But the film works partly because of these great
performances and the script, but also because of de Palma’s direction. The
pacing is absolutely spot-on, the camera full of moments of flash and
invention. Every action sequence has its own distinct tone, from the horse
riding hi-jinks of a Canadian border interception of a booze truck, to the dark
slaughter late at night of one of the film’s main characters (a masterful,
Hitchcockian piece of genius by the way that uses the POV shot to exceptional
effect). A late roof chase sizzles with a ruthless energy.
But the real highpoint of the action is of course that
famous train-station shoot out. Allegedly the original plans on the day had to
be ditched due to budgetary reasons – so cinephile de Palma pulled a sublime Battleship Potemkin homage out of his
locker. Shot in near silence, save for gunshots, the bounce of a pram falling
down the station stairs (baby on board) and a spare score from Morricone, the
sequence is true bravura cinema, both hugely exciting and strangely endearing
for all those who know anything about the history of cinema.
De Palma and Mamet keep the story focused, clear and every
scene has a clear purpose and goal. There isn’t a single superfluous character
or moment. Everything is perfectly assembled to serve the overall impact of the
film. It’s gripping, entertaining and compelling: the sort of film where if you
catch it at the right age it has you for life. Ennio Morricone’s operatic score
is perfect for the film, underlining and emphasising every moment and
effectively sweeping you up. Costner and Connery are superb, De Niro is
perfect, the film is a gift that has something new to give every time you see
it.