The little epic that couldn't

Rating: 5/10 (21 August 2002)

I had never seen "Scarface" before but of course had heard a lot about it. After watching it I have to say that it's a very good vicious gangster movie. The problem is that it's a very bad epic.
The first part of the movie is good, but eventually the movie switches out of the rise of Tony Montana and becomes a sort of morality tale that just doesn't fly. Every time that the "truth" about Tony's world was shown by one plot device or another, my reaction was "yeah, I know." There wasn't really anything interesting in all of it, just a pretentious effort determined to make itself an epic. The most blatant evidence of this comes in the tagline: "the world will remember him by another name...Scarface." This is what I would refer to as epic cheese. You can't sit down and say "I'm going to create an epic now." The good movie comes first, and if it is done well enough the epic feel results.
Scarface has some great stuff in it, but in the end it rings hollow. There's a great deal of high-minded thought and not enough real substance behind it. The sister is a good example, seeming to transform for no apparent reason, as the character isn't really given enough scenes to develop. Scarface is the same way--much of it feels more like a highlight reel than a film. It's what would have happened if all three Godfathers would have been condensed into a single 3-hour film. The result is disappointing, but it's still something worth watching, if only to get to say hello to Pacino's little friend. 5/10