" Team Work ! "

Rating: 6/10 (8 November 2006)

Though not a masterpiece in my opinion, this is a good crime film focused on Al Capone's chase by Elliot Ness and his men. Brian de Palma gets a fine entertaining product with a meticulous direction and a well created atmosphere of the 20's and early 30's in Chicago when Capone was at his peak. The film has tension, the action sequences are well handled and the musical score -though somewhat odd- fits enough.
Kevin Costner is correct as Elliot Ness but the acting "coup de force" is between Sean Connery (as Malone) and Robert de Niro (as Capone), both outstanding in their characters; de Niro is perhaps the best in a role that has had excellent performers in pictures such as Rod Steiger, Ben Gazzara and Jason Robards. Good jobs too from Andy Garcìa and Charles Martin Smith as Costner's sidekick lawmen. Billy Drago looks mean enough as Frank Nitti.
The famous sequence at the train station (baby and stairs included) is not a highlight to me for I found it definitely too slow and long and the same with the sequence when Ness goes after Nitti at he Court House. Clear overrunning of some particular sequences is a usual characteristic in de Palma's films and no one knows why (Craig Wasson following Deborah Shelton through a mall in "Body Double" and Angie Dickinson and the man at the art museum in "Dressed to Kill", both being perfect examples).
But all in all "The Untouchables" is a fine and enjoyable crime and gangsters movie. Worth watching indeed.