Three Men of Excess

Rating: Null/10 (17 April 2001)

Spoilers herein.
This may be Stone's best screenplay because it allows him to color big and be vulgar. And this is just exactly what Pacino does best: come down on a part like a sledgehammer -- not acting so much as pounding. I find both of these guys boorish. But watch what dePalma does with them.

Pacino's excess maps directly to Montana's excess -- both acting out the same role. dePalma keeps his distance from Pacino, holding the camera outside his space, never sharing his perspective. This is the first time that his camera's swoops and pans start to emote, to add substance to the narrative, to actually paint. This is where he gets his legs, leading up to what I think is a high point in cinematic painting: `Snake Eyes.' No one can do better without stealing from him.
Excess -- so it matters that the substance of the film are the three American excesses: the Latin manner of self-satisfaction, the gangster ethic of gimme, and the church of drugs, all of which underlie the peculiar religion of the US. Stone does a good job with the tension among these three. Latin sex versus unsexing coke; American opportunity versus the destruction of success; violence versus humor well before Tarantino. dePalma uses each excess in his style: sometimes with great effect. The sets are so theatrical they approach fantasy; the moves of the camera are greater when the architecture has grand features. The moves are duller when Montana is. The cutting jumps when he does, as in the first interrogation, and when he argues with his mother over the sister.
The best sequence cinematically (to my mind) is the attack in the Babylon, with the pans and mirrors, but there are other fine visual treats here. Credit the director. Most films are about other films -- this one is largely original sofar as the visuals and is the root of many that followed, including some of dePalma's own.
Pfeiffer should be great, but she's merely pretty. Her thinness of presence is just right for the trophy girl who wasn't there, and she only gets by because the character is perpetually stoned. Wonder if she ever suspected she was being used that way? Mastrantonio has much more fire -- central to making the final sequence nearly work. But I guess it is hard to build a career on that. She pretty much faded after Scorsese's `Color of Money,' used that fire the best.