Untouchable In It's Genre

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2019)

I just revisited this film after having viewed it many times over. Not to date myself but I saw it premier in theaters when I was 17 years old. In this viewer's opinion it remains De Palma's best gangster crime drama, although it was a tough choice considering, "Scarface" and "Carlito's Way". This film has outstanding direction, screenplay, cinematography, settings, costume, score and acting. The ensemble cast includes artists such as Costner, Connery, De Niro, Garcia, Smith, Clarkson, Drago and Kehoe. The entire cast including the supporting cast deliver superb performances. However it is Costner, Connery, Garcia and De Niro who command the screen. De Niro even uses his method acting which he is liable to do. The film starts off blazing with Al Capone surrounded by his henchmen trying to reason with reporters why people are going to do what they want to do and he is simply responding to their will as an honest businessman. The plot is set during the late 1920's Prohibition and revolves around Bureau of Prohibition agent Eliot Ness who is assigned the task of taking down Capone, the mob kingpin of the entire city of Chicago. Ness is leading a special task force and is as straight as a shooter, pun intended, as they come. He immediately encounters corruption within his task force which forces him to go outside to find his own team. In steps Jimmy Malone who is an Irish-American veteran beat cop and is reluctant to join Ness at first. He agrees to work with Ness if he will let him do things his way which sometimes means thinking and acting like a criminal. Next is George Stone who is a hot tempered Italian-American sharp shooter straight out of the academy. Ness next consults with U.S. Treasury Agent Oscar Wallace who determines the best way to nab Capone is through tax evasion as he has not filed an income tax return for several years. Ness encounters more corruption when he is offered a bribe to drop the case against Capone as he is feeling the loss of income and heat from Ness. Capone dispatches his hitman Frank Nitti to threaten Ness' family in another attempt to back off. During a raid to intercept a liquor shipment at the Canadian - U.S. border the team captures Capone's bookkeeper George. Jimmy slyly hoodwinks a brisk agreement from George to cooperate with the investigation. Wallace and George are heading to a safe house, but encounter Nitti dressed as a cop and do not make it. Jimmy intuitively knows the Chief of Police Dorsett sold Wallace and George out to Nitti. He confronts Dorsett and beats the location of Capone's chief bookkeeper Walter Payne out of him. Later that night Jimmy is ambushed by Nitti and is bullet ridden by a Tommy gun. Before he passes Jimmy is able to inform Ness of Walter's plan to leave town. Walter eventually testifies in court about Capone's untaxed income, but it takes some chicanery on Ness' part to make things happen. The judge won't accept evidence of jury tampering and right before the judge is going to claim a mistrial Ness implies that there are many powerful politician's names in the bookkeeping ledger showing payoffs by Capone. This prompts the judge to immediately switch the current jury for a jury in an adjacent courtroom. The plot is thrilling, clever, intelligent, action packed, ingenious, cathartic, duplicitous, gritty, poetic and has a liberating end. There are so many memorable scenes and quotes in this film. My favorite scene is when Ness confronts Capone in his hotel lobby over the killings of Wallace and George. It is an intense scene. My favorite quotes are from a scene where Ness and Nitti are on a rooftop after Ness is aware that it was Nitti who murdered Jimmy. Nitti says to Ness, "You're friend squealed like a stuck Irish pig". Ness tosses him from the rooftop and yells, "Did he sound anything like that?". It is a riveting exchange. This film has sublime direction by De Palma shot in his signature format and is bravura in it's genre. It remains a timeless classic.