Slow, Predictable and Schmaltzy

Rating: 5/10 (10 July 2009)

It's one of those movies in which the baddies are really bad and the goodies are so very, very good.
Daffy Duck-voiced Kevin Costner plays an Elliot Ness who is such a self-righteous goody-two-shoes that it almost makes you cringe. He's a sort of Mary Poppins in drag. His wife is likewise such a doting, tractable paragon of womanly virtue that she must have been designed in the Ideal Wife Laboratory. Ness contracts the services of a dogged police officer, a slightly dilatory bean-counter, and a latter-day mixed-race gunfighter, to take on the whole crime syndicate. And in effect, impose upon the American people one of the greatest restrictions upon civil liberties before jack-boots became fashionable: that of banning booze.
It is an example of how some people can be found to impose any law - even one entailing genocide - given sufficiently authoritative mandate.
Robert DeNiro plays an Al Capone with the sort of uninhibited psychotic panache that has almost become his trade mark. He's good, so long as you're not at the wrong end of his baseball bat. Otherwise the confrontations are staged almost to the point of numbers. Whether it's the assassination of Ness's untouchables, or a lengthy slow-mo conflict in the station; you seem to have seen it happen almost before it's begun.
The 'Roaring Twenties' are an extremely exciting and much under-utilised period of American history. Yet this recreation of one chapter is woefully lacking in any particular merit. I understand the recent Depp vehicle 'Public Enemies' has little more to offer.
Frankly; I thought the TV series starring Robert Stack was more entertaining per unit time, and Rod Steiger's 'Al Capone' much more believable and periodically authentic.
This is strictly for the fans. A one-watch wonder.