"What Are You Prepared To Do?!"

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2000)

Even though parts of the story weren't true, this movie is definitely a psychological thrill ride.
Why "psychological?" Because Elliot Ness in the beginning of the film was a clean honest cop who followed everything in the book. Naive too, since he was unaware of the police corruption during the Prohibition in the film. Then after a mishap, he meets a "beat" cop, Malone, brilliantly played by Sean Connery (Best Supporting Actor for the film).
WARNING: SPOILER. Malone tells Ness that if he wants to capture Al Capone, he must go all the way, and then asks him "What are you prepared to do?" That question is answered throughout the whole film. Ness must escape his comfort zone and find unorthodox ways to find Al Capone, with the help from Malone.
The scene I liked is that when he asked the first apprehended bookkeeper in Canada to translate a ledger from Capone, the bookkeeper refuses at first. Then Malone punches him, goes outside of the cabin, picks up a dead gangster (shot by Ness, which I'll discuss later) and asks him to decipher the ledger; he puts the gun in the corpse's mouth and said "I'm going to count to three...what's the matter, can't talk with a gun in your mouth?! One... two... three!!" BANG!! Blood spills, and the bookkeeper, very intimidated, begins to talk. The mountie, who helped Ness, says to him, "I do not approve your method." Ness counters, "Yeah... well you're not from Chicago."
The scene which Ness reacts after he shoots the gangster in Canada was the turning point in which he had to do whatever it takes to get Capone; that and the shooting death of Malone, who said in his dying words "What are you prepared to do?!"
This movie showed us that no matter how stable things are, and although we use this term relatively, no one is really "safe." We must take chances at something even if it means breaking the law... and I mean it relatively.