Film

Scarface (1983)

Director: Brian De Palma

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

The first motel shootout bodes well, a set piece handled with panache and the right note of clammy terror, but the rest of this lengthy modern morality tale (updating Hawks' film to 1980) is downhill all the way. When Castro last threw out all his scum, most of them fetched up in Florida, including Tony Montana (Pacino), a man with only 'balls of steel and my word, and I don't break either for anyone'. He attaches to the right sort of godfather, and rises and rises through a world of conspicuous consumption which would make the Borgias blanch. Filmed in the bright widescreen glare of a thousand white suits, the movie is still empty at its heart; where Coppola gave you a whole dynasty in The Godfather, with a world and all its moral confusions behind it, De Palma spends three hours sketching out another tetchy little fiend with no more than the ability to nose-dive into mountains of cocaine and come up to razor a few more rivals. Pacino gives a monstrous performance as the Cuban heel, clearly aiming for role of the year, but the abiding memory is of just another Method boy chewing the scenery in his quiet way. CPea.

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