The Untouchables

Who could have been more ready to love this picture than I? After all, it is an action thriller, directed by Brian DePalma, with Sean Connery, and promising a lot of gunplay. And who could love it more than I do? Nobody, that's who. The picture is an absolute stunner from start to finish. Based of course on the old television series (which was based on an autobiography by Ness himself) which for me always epitomizes 1950's black and white cop shows, the film manages to be simultaneously faithful to its roots and at the same time thoroughly modern. Playwright David Mamet, who wrote the script, sets it up as a classic confrontation between good and evil, in the forms of straight-arrow treasury man Ness and the quintessential gangster Al Capone, and the thing plays out beautifully. Chicago is a never-never land, where the two principals battle it out for control. Kevin Costner is excellent as the morally upright cop getting his education in the trenches, but the real scene stealer is Connery, playing the streetwise cop Malone, who joins Ness's band and becomes the heart of the machine. The rest of the players are equally good. I can't say enough about DePalma, who cements his position as the preeminent director of big pictures.

From a purely technical standpoint, this is probably even better than “Scarface” (blasphemy!) though for me it doesn't have quite the dramatic depth (though it does have its share, as Ness faces up to the fact that to battle evil it is sometimes necessary to employ evil). The picture is an absolute symphony; it has a range and fluidity unmatched by anything I have seen in recent memory. He employs a repertoire of styles and techniques which is absolutely majestic in its effortlessness. And every one of them pays off, from the long, circling overhead shot of Capone that opens the picture, to the sinister tracking shots zooming in and around Malone's apartment just before he gets murdered (by the sepulchral Nitti), to the--of course--train station sequence. Why dwell on this? A big set-piece, to be sure, and I don't care if it echced a million previous scenes on stairs (note “Potemkin” and “The Godfather”) this sequence is virtuosic. It almost transcends cinema; it is closer to ballet. At once horrific and hilarious, violent and serene, tense and cathartic, this sequence alone is worth the price of admission. DePalma is doing what he does best, which is to twist you around his little finger and make you feel whatever it is he wants you to feel.

Even the wild west shootout (with the Untouchables riding over the hill like the cavalry) is an unexpected gamble that pays off in an exhilarating way. You cannot help but be taken with this kind of moviemaking; it is what making movies should be about. We abandon formula here and set off in new directions. I don't know if this a Great picture, but, while it is great moviemaking, it goes beyond even that; it is great composing. To the level of resonance it goes, the picture is essentially flawless. It is so good I have to recant something I said earlier, to the effect that after “The Godfather “and “Scarface”, no other gangster pictures need be made. I was wrong. DePalma shows that there is life in this profoundly American genre yet.