Not someone I'd bring to dinner

Rating: 8/10 (14 September 2008)

'Scarface' is a strangely alluring movie. The film is held together by Al Pacino's charismatic performance, the ostentatious '80s design and sets, and a dirge-like synthesizer soundtrack by Giorgio Moroder. Al Pacino's portrayal is really wonderful, giving an extreme amount of depth to an emotional, desperate character and helps the film redefine and brutally modernize the crime genre.
Scarface chronicles the rise of Tony Montana, a Cuban criminal who immigrates to Miami in the early '80s and gradually attains influence in the drug trade. Tony's rise in the drug trade is interesting because it is the only avenue for his ambition. As a second-class citizen, an uneducated Cuban in 1980s America, Tony immediately realizes he will go nowhere working a 9-5 vending job. We watch him and his best friend work their way through gruesome early jobs and earn the respect of their coked-up drug boss. Of course, you can guess where the story goes since it has become so famous in modern film.
There is a distinct contrast between Pacino's role here and in the Godfather films. This film is long, but the pacing is fairly continuous. There's even a montage (gotta have a montage!) at the beginning of the second half of the film to cover a long span of time really quickly. At times the film can feel draining because the drawn-out dialogs are often about such greedy, shallow, or heated personal topics -- or they just descend into Tony's uncanny ability to curse up a storm. Especially in the second half of the film, when Tony's personal vendettas and passive-aggressive traits become exacerbated by substance abuse.
There are certainly a few twists in the plot, but they are somewhat predictable and simply have to do with Tony's bursts of anger. This is sometimes boring because the self-destructive nature of characters like Tony has been covered with greater depth by more succinct films ('Raging Bull', 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God'), so Scarface sometimes becomes something of an aesthetic experience. But then again, the aesthetics are so highly appealing: a flashy portrayal of Cuban subculture in early '80s Miami.
I'm not sure if this film is quite as focused as the later Pacino/De Palma movie, 'Carlito's Way'. That one has a better sense of narration and features characters who are less distant. It gets to the point more quickly. But Scarface is completely unique. Scarface places the whole American dream within a newly interpreted context. Tony comes to America and works his way to the top through the only path that is open to him. It changed crime films forever and did something totally new with the classic rags-to-riches tale. Influential, ultra-violent, and interestingly admired in modern pop-culture.