A fine film, although Costner can't surpass Robert Stack.

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2004)

The 1960s television show "The Untouchables", starring Robert Stack as Eliot Ness, is one of the finest crime dramas ever produced. Th 1987 film, with Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, is also of high quality, although I prefer the TV series in general; if only for the higher volume of material. The film is set in Chicago during Al Capone's reign, when all levels of the government and police have been infiltrated by the mafia. Treasury agent Eliot Ness (Costner) and his squad of Untouchables have vowed to bring down Capone and his organization. The other members of the squad are; James Malone (Sean Connery), an old Irish (?!) cop; George Stone (Andy Garcia), an Italian recruit; and Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), an accountant from the Treasury Department. Capone is played by Robert De Niro, in another of his iconic mob roles. There are several classic sequences in the film: the harrowing death of the little girl; Capone's baseball lecture; the ambush at the Canadian border; the death of Malone; the shootout at the train station; and Ness's climactic killing of Frank Nitti. The plot is not airtight, but it hardly matters. This is a classic piece of entertainment.