Pointless

Rating: 1/10 (3 March 2014)

When I first heard that Stone and Pacino were remaking Scarface I was intrigued. What did they think they could add to Paul Muni's Original? As soon as the movie came out, from the very first scene, I knew: nothing.
The only thing the two movies had in common was the title. Why they had announced it as a remake was a mystery.
So I sat back, now without expectation, to see what movie they had made.
Throughout the screening I paid close attention to all of Scarface's elements, from cinematography to acting, and finally came to the conclusion that the only reason the movie was made was Stone's ego and Pacino's determination to prove how greatly he could ham it up.
Scarface, despite its commercial success, is a manneristic disaster that never should have seen the light of a projector.
I do not agree that any of its flaws are fatal - overacting, lack of story, pacing, poor cinematography have all been overcome in numerous movies.
What made those movies was something to care about; Scarface lacks that quality. Tony Montana is a nonentity; Pacino's portrayal is not that of a independent character but of an 8-year-old's fantasy of being as bad as possible. In short, there is no Tony Montana - only Pacino playing out that fantasy.
And this is a crime common to many, especially many successful, directors and actors. More common among the Europeans but spectacular when an American puts his ego above the audience.
So Scarface is a movie about nothing and no one, punctuated with a great deal of equally pointless violence.
Many have pointed out that Pacino's overacting and the extreme of carnage were meant to makes points, to portray the real-world carnage of the drug trade.
Pardon me? There's no hint of reality in the movie. Pacino isn't portraying a low-life, low-class 'Gangsta'. Pacino's trying to achieve an epic ham. He succeeded so well that the character was left behind.
My reason for writing this review now is a show I saw last night that traced Scarface's transformation from critical bomb to cult classic. One of the show's implication was that all the critics were wrong - I disagree for the reason listed above.
As for cult status - fine, even if Plan 9 from Outer Space was a better movie.