Pacino is great, but the rest of the film is overrated

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2005)

Oliver Stone has a habit of writing extremely controversial films that are either extremely well done (e.g. JFK) or extremely corny (e.g. Natural Born Killers). Scarface is one of those corny ones unfortunately, even though it seems hard to believe that this film could be mediocre considering it has one of the greatest directors ever at the helm (Brian De Palma), and one of the greatest actors of our generation gracing the main role (Al Pacino). Unfortunately, while Pacino's performance is one of the best (and maybe his most overacted)of his career, the film itself is filled with mediocre performances, a cheesy and linear storyline, and bland, one-dimensional characters that prevent this crime movie from being anything more than a popcorn action flick.
Pacino does an amazing job throughout the film playing Tony Montana and truly stands out amongst all the mediocre acting and performances. While Steven Bauer does a decent job as his buddy Manny, Michelle Pfeiffer's character, Elvira, is atrocious. Not only is she a drugged up junkie that is the same character throughout the movie, but she doesn't say anything of significance throughout the movie other than cynical, sarcastic comebacks that make the audience think she is PMSing 24-7. Even her last line in the film is a corny and somewhat uninspired line that has the audience chuckling rather than sympathizing with her, which is just another example of Oliver Stone trying way too hard with his scripts. However, Al Pacino rescues all the mediocre performances with his emotional portrayal of Tony Montana. Throughout the movie, Pacino is passionate in his role, usually screaming everything at the top of his lungs or following anything he has to say with a curse word or two...or three. While at times Pacino does say some lines that have the audiences scratching their heads (which is not Pacino's fault but rather Oliver Stone's), Pacino's performance helps overcome those obscure lines and makes the audience yearn for more.
The same can't be said of the story of Scarface however. Despite its great potential, the film' story falls flat on its face, lacking any real depth or any personality at all. Even though Stone and De Palma wanted to simplify the story and dialogue from the original 1932 classic (which was set in New York and about Al Capone), they simplified it too much and thus the story suffered because of it. With everything now simple and quite linear, making the story is easy to follow for the casual viewer; the film still lacks any punch other than the tremendous amount of violence. When the movie comes to a close, the audience feels deprived in a way, feeling as if the film had no purpose or any personality of its own. While De Palma and Stone did accomplish their goal of telling a simple story of an American gangster, they only did a mediocre job. For it is just that: a simply story of an American gangster and nothing else. That may have been fine back in 1932, but compared to other modern gangster films such as Godfather, Good Fellas and heck, even Pulp Fiction, there is nothing Scarface has to stand on its own two feet in comparison to those films.
It's a shock to see that a wonderful and passionate actor such as Al Pacino have all his talents go to waste on such a mediocre film. While the movie itself isn't a total lost cause, it is just not a film that truly stands out on its own. Pacino's performance saves it from total doom, but without it, Scarface is nothing more than a cheesy story that could probably be used for a CBS Tuesday Night movie following CSI. However, while this all sounds negative, it is not a total waste and deserves to be seen at least once, just because of Pacino and the action. However, actually buying the mediocre film would be a challenge, especially when the only version on sale on DVD is an expensive two-disc Collector's set.