The world wasn't enough. Tony Montana wanted everything!

Rating: 8/10 (21 July 2007)

Alphonse "Scarface" Capone (1899 - 1947) infamous reputation as gangster and crime Lord during the 1920's and 1930's had now reached the movies. It begins with Ben Hecht (1894 - 1964) writer of The Front Page (1931), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Stagecoach (1939), and with director / writer Howard Hawks (1896 - 1977) who gave us such greats, as writer, The French Connection (1971) and The Thing from Another World (1951). Collaborating, during the early nineteen thirties, to write and direct the original Scarface of 1932. It is here, in this story that Oliver Stone (b. 1946) takes his lead as screenwriter for his contemporary adaptation of this gangster myth.
Cuba was having very real and severe problems by the end of the nineteen seventies with its political, social and economic unrest and between April to October 1980, some 125,000 Cubans had jumped ship and sailed to the then Jimmy Carter administrative (1977 to 1981) US of A. The reason the exiles had to be stopped toward the end was that it was alleged that some 25,000, so far, of these self-claimed political refugees were convicts, mental patents and undesirables that Cuba no longer wanted on their home ground. America shut its gates, but the damage had been done. The likes of fictional Tony Montana, ex convict, had already arrived and planted his roots in the dark, dangerous and destructive world of America's drug world.
Together, Brian De Palma (b. 1940) maker of Carrie (1976), The Untouchables (1987), Carlito's Way (1993) and Mission: Impossible (1996) and Oliver Stone have seized upon the golden opportunity and redesigned this classic myth into a contemporary setting.
This ultra violent portrayal of one mans rise from the Cuban Freedom Camps to the Ivory Towers of the drug Lords and their trappings is a testimony to the narcissistic accessories of the early eighties America and its self abuse and destructive need for cocaine. This is simply a tale of supply and demand and one mans vision on how he is going to supply this demand, no matter the consequences. An agonising and extremely brutal underworld that Brian De Palma has depicted with classy extremes in the killing fields of the streets of America.
Both fast paced and hard hitting, this epic journey from skid row to the affluent excess's and the slow slip into the abyss of madness and paranoia is astounding. These are uncompromising and unforgiving times, and Oliver Stones views on these people are of contempt. This is shown in a very rendering scene where Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer's character) and Tony Montana are having more than a discussion, at a restaurant table, about her womb being so polluted by drugs that she cannot give him the child he wants, and his own drug-filled ego getting the better of them both.
It is in this climb to the top that we see more than what is being effected in his own life, that the style in which he has become accustomed can be more than infectious, and treacherous. It is his reconnection with his elderly mother and younger sister that has him seen as more than a dog of the streets but as a scorned son and much loved brother. Touching, maybe, but this is Tony Montana learning that when one has made his bed one has to learn to lie in it.
And what a bed he has made, within its nineteen eighties throwbacks of style and music that the writings of Oliver Stone and Brian De Palmas delivery of excellent cinematography by John A. Alonzo (there are at least two wonderful panning shots, here, in Scarface that are just mesmerising, slow, deliberate and focused on its intent). Without question, this is Al Pacino's (b. 1940) greatest cinema achievement as the psychotic Montana whose American Dream slowly turns to nightmare and cold reality that his hell on earth is just as twisted as his hell in mind.
"Scarface" aka Tony Montana is a fine example of the American Dream, his right and privilege to take hold and make best his ambition to escape the poverty and destitution of his past and make good his future. However, let this be a stark warning, that when one sleeps with dogs one will wake up with fleas, but with Tony Montana this flea was to bite him hard, fast and without pity.
Scarface: Extremely violent, extremely explosive, extremely honest and additive and without doubt cinemas most extreme and updated stance on the world of the Gangster myth. Say hello to Tony Montana.