What would Hollywood be without it's gangsters?

Rating: 7/10 (28 May 2004)

Al Pacino is Tony Montana, a poor immigrant from Cuba who wants to make it big in the USA. And he does, as he becomes one of the most important drug lords of his days. But after every rise comes a fall...
Your typical smack-in-the-face, epical crime/gangster movie with elements as honour and family played to the extend. Pacino is excellent (as is about everybody else from the cast), but Scarface can't really compete with The Godfather (I + II), Goodfellas or The Untouchables (a slightly different film, but it's my alltime favorite, so I love to bring it up :)).
The element the movie suffers the most from is the love-story between Montana and Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), a drug-addicted powerlusted 'babe' (hardly IMO, oh well...) who's with Tony's boss until Tony kills him, takes over his business and apparently his woman. Why he would do that is a mystery to me, as Elvira doesn't bring much joy to him. Au contraire...
Another thing I thought was strange: how did Tony make so many money, almost effortlessly? We hear him talking about millions of dollars, and that's just in his first period of reign. Is it really that easy?
But overall, I enjoyed the story, although it's not the classic many people mistake it for (again, IMO). It seems a bit harsh though to give DePalma a Razzie for it... what were they thinking?
7/10.