The Untouchables (1987)
Directed by Brian De Palma

Film Review

Brian De Palma's slick action thriller The Untouchables has little to do with the popular American television show of the same title (first screened in the late 1950s), although it offers a similarly fictitious account of Eliot Ness's attempts to clean up Prohibition Era Chicago. The film that made Kevin Costner a major Hollywood star and earned Sean Connery his only Oscar to date is also one of De Palma's finest - intelligently scripted, beautifully acted and directed with all of De Palma's customary panache and energy.  In later years, much of De Palma's work would be written off as being all style and no substance; this certainly does not apply to The Untouchables, one of the most elegantly crafted and most satisfying gangster films of the 1980s.  It effectively revives the spirit of the classic American movie of the 1930s - notably Howard Hawks's Scarface (1932), which De Palma remade in 1983 - and gives it a dazzling makeover, seething with style and ferocity.

Despite its very modern feel, and abundance of graphic violence (which just manages to stay within the bounds of good taste and narrative expediency), The Untouchables is essentially no more than a classic good-versus-evil morality tale, in which the good guys and bad guys could hardly be more clearly delineated.  The central hero (Ness) is a clean living family man of unimpeachable morality; his opponent is a ruthless gangland boss (Capone) who thinks he can control Chicago through intimidation and bribery.  Ness soon realises that he cannot defeat Capone on his own terms and so must compromise his cherished principles in his crusade to bring him to book - a moral conflict which is at the heart of the film and makes it far more interesting than your average gangster flick.  Costner's portrayal of Ness is striking in both its conviction and humanity, a perfect counterpoint to Robert De Niro's unnervingly comical interpretation of Capone.  Sean Connery turns in the best performance as the Irish cop who ends up being Ness's mentor and spiritual guardian, the Obi-Wan Kenobi to Ness's Luke Skywalker.  (It's odd how the same stories keep cropping up in different guises).

The film allows Brian De Palma plenty of opportunity to indulge his penchant for grandly operatic set-pieces, the most remarkable of which is a ten minute sequence filmed on the staircase at Chicago's Grand Station.  In an inspired recreation of the most famous scene from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), De Palma divides our attention between a typically grisly gangster shootout and the fate of a mother and her newborn baby in a pram.  Filmed partly in slow motion (to eke out the tension to a point at which it becomes almost unbearable), the sequence shows De Palma at his most masterful as a choreographer of action scenes - it is gloriously overblown, but utterly mesmerising.  Other highlights include a spectacular rooftop duel between Costner and Billy Drago (superb as one of Capone's hired thugs) and an exciting western-style interlude that offers more than a passing nod to Sergio Leone (an impression that is reinforced by Ennio Morricone's lush twangy score).  The Untouchables may not be historically accurate but it is an entertaining romp, one of the most consistently enjoyable of Brian De Palma's films.

Film Synopsis

In 1930s Chicago, the sale of alcohol is prohibited, allowing shady entrepreneurs like Al Capone to make a fortune by peddling illicit liquor at skyrocket prices.  Treasury agent Eliot Ness is assigned to bring an end to Capone's criminal activities, but his attempts to obtain incriminating evidence by raiding his depots are constantly thwarted.  Ness soon realises that Capone is being tipped off by corrupt policemen but he is unsure what to do about it.  One evening, he comes across an ageing beat cop, Jimmy Malone.  Impressed by Malone's honesty and practical good sense, Ness recruits him and takes his advice to form a select team made up of rookie cops straight from the police academy.  The team is completed by Oscar Wallace, an accountant who is confident that a tax evasion charge can be brought against Al Capone.  After Ness's team have launched a successful raid on a shipment of illegal alcohol, Capone's henchmen strike back and execute two of Ness's men.  Malone discovers that the key to convicting Capone is to extort testimony from his accountant Walter Payne.  Before Ness can act on this information, Malone becomes the gangster's next victim...