25 years on the film is now more a parody than reality

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2009)

Unintentionally Hilarious but viscerally moving about Tony Montana from Cuba who comes to the US, becomes a drug lord, a junkie and dies in a spectacular shoot out. Brian DePalma's film remaking the Howard Hawks film from the 1930's works on some levels despite being so silly as to become a comedy. Blame Oliver Stone who's script is overly ripe. And Blame the cast who over acts like there is no tomorrow.I saw the film on Christmas day 1983 and was floored by it, even though I knew some of it was silly.(I thought it was one of the best films ever made) Watching it again for the first time in a couple of years I was horrified at how bad the film is. Yea the underlying themes and such are there but its so jumbled I'm amazed that anyone takes the film seriously. I have no idea why Montana is an icon for the todays gangsters since he is such a joke, unless they don't see it that way, or perhaps its like a childhood friend who loved the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, or rather the rise, he totally ignored the fall. An important movie in the history of film simply because its become such a cultural touch stone. I think its now a violent joke.