Making the world "ours."

Rating: Null/10 (14 January 1999)

Scarface is one of those "great" films that simply is what it is. Nothing else. It's not even a movie, but rather an event. And like all great films, it convinces us that Tony Montana (Pacino) is a man like you or me in pursuit of the same things, namely, wealth. We all want it, but it takes a performance as riveting as Pacino's that forces us to ask ourselves: How far will (we) one man really go to get it?
I just saw the movie again after not seeing it for ten or so years and you know what? Al Pacino still blows me way. There is no way, I would say, one can watch Scarface and not be "hit" by his performance. Montana's rage, a brewing tempest within that could disgorge any second, is as magnetizing as the film's score. That scene in the restaurant where he literally erupts is utterly disgusting, yet somehow, we can't resist it. Pacino, like Deniro, has that spellbinding power to engross us with his words, gestures, movements, to that point where feelings of repulsion suddenly become feelings of attraction. We are appealed by this rage, even though we would love to condemn it. Fury, I've always asserted, is a beautiful thing in Pacino's realm.
Oliver Stone's script is flawless and De Palma's directing, proven substantially already throughout his career, is sublime. The film has now become a cult classic, and for good reason. De Palma's shots of Montana's mansion, especially of the lavish red staircase shot overhead, in combination with the score, are numbing; the genius of his movements are inestimable. More importantly, De Palma, like Coppola did in the "Godfather," has made a little room for us viewers to step into a garish mob world where the immutable law has become: "think too strongly the world is yours and thou shall be destroyed."
Like Tony Montana, we all want the American dream. But in our search, we have to remember to make the world ours, not scoop it from underneath and then spit on it.