A very strange, bizarre film

Rating: 6/10 (9 November 2012)

Eliot Ness was no saint. He was a terrible husband, a drunk, and a failure at most things other than catching the criminals he pursued. But you'd never know that from watching this movie. The true story of the Untouchables, as written by Ness, was embellished with fiction before its publication a year after his death in 1957, fictionalized further by the TV show, and taken even further away from real life by David Mamet and Brian De Palma for this popular 1987 hit.
In 1930 the Mob rules the streets of Chicago, spreading fear and violence wherever they find competition or defiance. Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner is his first true lead role) is the straight-up, honest, pure, incorruptible Treasury agent out to get him. Finding the local police filled with crooked Irish labor he keeps his group small, picking jaded beat cop Malone (Sean Connery in an Oscar-winning role), Fed accountant Wallace, and rookie Stone (Andy Garcia, also in his first big role). Together they go after big boss Al Capone, finding it rather easy to do so despite the fact that we never see any puzzle-solving, mystery, clues, or plot twists. Everything seems to conveniently fall into their lap, giving them nothing much to do apart from react and talk big.
The Untouchables really does LOOK like a big screen epic. The lovely photography, period setting, and high-key production give it the feel of a classic, but the movie itself is hollow, flat, tepid, disorientating, ill-conceived, and laughably misjudged. I loved it when I was 7-years-old thanks to all the bloody violence, though watching it as an adult reveals it to be frustrating and weird. I am amazed that David Mamet wrote a screenplay this clunky. The man is a master of cryptic dialogue, and here, in a movie filled with gangsters who ought to be fast-talking and garrulous, every single line is so utterly basic and straight-forward.
Even the moral difficulties of Prohibition (itself a moronic mistake by the US government) are gleaned over with no effort, care, understanding, no sense of irony or hypocrisy, no turmoil, and no inner conflict. De Palma is so busy shooting the ceiling with low angles it's like he only glanced at script once or twice without realizing how stilted and lukewarm it was.
Ennio Morricone's wonderful score is the soul of this movie (and boy did it really appeal to 7-year-old me) giving energy and life to scenes that would otherwise be moribund. But even he doesn't know when to restrain himself, occasionally going over-the-top and spoiling things.
The Untouchables is curiously uplifting, sporadically violent, and unfortunately over-praised. It fails on so many levels, though it seems that De Palma and Co. couldn't care less and were happy with the bizarre, confusing end result.