Violence for the purpose of shocking...

Rating: 5/10 (18 May 2006)

Exceptionally bloody and profane drug-mob melodrama updates the 1930s Scarface/Al Capone legend and transplants it to 1980s Florida. Political Cuban refugee (Al Pacino), liberated from his homeland by Castro in 1980 along with some 125,000 other refugees, becomes major drug-lord in Miami. Elaborately made and mounted paean to underworld crime revels in its sleaze: the sordid characters, the ultra-violent mayhem, and one particular four-letter-word. Pacino plays a Cuban drug czar like nobody else, but his barbed, swaggering performance--while audacious--is one-note and over-the-top. Oliver Stone wrote the muddled screenplay (he's never sure which way to lean) and Brian De Palma directed, rather oppressively. Paul Muni played Scarface in the 1932 version, trafficking in bootleg gin instead of cocaine...which version you prefer might depend on your tolerance for chainsaws. ** from ****