De Palma as Hitchcock and Eisenstein

Rating: 10/10 (14 June 2006)

Arguably one of Brian de Palma's best films, THE UNTOUCHABLES tells the stories of Al Capone and Elliot Ness, both men who were on the opposite sides of the law during the Prohibition years. With a beginning that literally explodes (and is a homage or rip-off or both to the key scene in Alfred Hitchcock's SABOTAGE), De Palma weaves his tale around the eventual moment these two men's lives will dovetail even when such a thing never happened in reality; however, the story is so well done up until that moment that you walk out of the movie thinking both men had that one moment where they told each other off. And that's again, the power of storytelling -- to tell a story with fictitious elements in a way that will make you believe such a thing has happened. With one of the mose masculine characters ever committed on screen during the Eighties and a readily identifiable screenplay by David Mamet, THE UNTOUCHABLES should have taken Brian De Palma's film career to even higher levels -- more so with Sean Connery's Oscar win -- but somehow his career went on a rapid decline. He went on to direct the awful and chaotic THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, the confusing but intriguing RAISING CAIN, and the so-so CARLITO'S WAY, only to make a slight rebound with MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and SNAKE EYES before plummeting again with MISSION TO MARS. However, if at all, and for anyone who enjoys De Palma's liberal borrowing from cinematic masters such as Hichcock and Eisenstein, this is a great movie to watch, particularly for its breathtaking sequence at the train station where Ness' and Capote's men have a fantastic face-off as a baby carriage careens out of control in the midst, barely avoiding bullets.