By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to Brian De Palma’s drug-fuelled extravaganza and cult favourite Scarface, starring Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer and Steven Bauer.
Ah, the good ol’ US of A. The land of opportunity. A nation where any man can achieve the impossible dream…The American Dream. He just has to want it enough and work hard. Or if Brian De Palma’s 1983 “classic”, Scarface, is to be believed, he can also just choose to tangle with Hector The Toad on a cocaine deal for a Miami drug baron. Shortcuts…gotta love ‘em.
Scarface is the story of Tony Montana (played by Mr. OTT himself, Al Pacino), a Cuban immigrant who meteorically rises to the top of the Florida drug trade before throwing it all away in a white chalky mountain of paranoia and self-destruction. Must be a good film, huh? Well, actually no. It’s rubbish.
This is a hammed up, utterly unbelievable movie that treats the audience like naive idiots. From homeless illegal immigrant to multi-millionaire drug lord in four easy steps? Please. Are we really meant to believe that Montana would have it so easy? Yes, I know, he was nearly fodder for Hector The Toad’s chainsaw in the film’s opening half hour, but there have to be more obstacles for a potential kingpin to deal with than something you can pick up from Bunnings.
Also, for all the cocaine, big guns and testosterone-led bluster, this isn’t actually all that entertaining. The scenes between Montana and the utterly unsexy Elvira, played by the usually very sexy Michelle Pfeiffer, are nothing short of monotonous. De Palma should have dispensed with the Elvira character altogether, and instead concentrated more on the intricate and complex nature of the uncomfortably close relationship between Montana and his sister, Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). That would have been much more interesting…
The final scene – in which Montana comes out from behind a mountain of cocaine, huge M-16 assault rifle blazing, and confronts the assassins sent to kill him – is, I concede, kind of fun. But a classic scene does not make a classic film…otherwise When Harry Met Sally would sit alongside The Godfather and Star Wars.
Don’t take my word for it…watch Scarface and judge for yourself, but don’t blame me if you end up moving to Florida in search of the non-existent American Dream…only to be hacked up by someone called, I dunno, Chi Chi The Chihuahua.
Want to read more from The Butcher? Check out his angry missives against The Artist, Only God Forgives, One Battle After Another, Birdman, Lethal Weapon, Blazing Saddles, Strictly Ballroom, Donnie Darko, Psycho, 12 Years A Slave, Red Dog, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Breathless, Elizabeth, Miracle On 34th Street, The Full Monty, There Will Be Blood, Les Miserables, The King’s Speech, Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Magnificent Seven, Gone With The Wind, The Right Stuff, 81/2, Pulp Fiction, Easy Rider, The Shawshank Redemption, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Wizard Of Oz, Jaws, Black Swan, Gladiator, Chopper, I’m Not There, Interstellar, Marvel Studios and Citizen Kane.
