Source material untouched

Rating: 5/10 (17 June 2012)

In prohibition-era Chicago crime lord extraordinaire Al Capone (Robert De Niro) builds a sizable fortune and powerful empire through the sale of illegally imported booze and moonshine. As portrayed in the movie even the law enforcement officials are either corrupt, deeply saddled in Capone's pocket, or basically blindsided towards alcohol given the stupidity and infeasibility of the prohibition. In the midst of these affairs Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) assembles together a group of incorruptible individuals to turn the tide on the faltering war. Amongst his crew is Jim Malone (Oscar-winner Sean Connery), a dated Irish cop, who patrols the streets in an attempt to detach himself from the lawlessness rife in the police force.
A meticulously delivered feature focused on details, sets, designs and captivating scenes, it does however have to cope with a less than stellar script, which skews the historical facts, rushes through to get to the end act and disdainfully disrupts the legend. For one thing Ness and his Untouchables count at a measly four people, a head-count introduced to be able to better flesh out characters, but ultimately causes the force to feel vulnerable, rag-tag and random. What's more the story-building jumps in leaps and bounds - one scene the merry band has just been formed, the next Capone is on the verge of being imprisoned. There is no sense of committed long-term police work on the boundaries of the law, only a rushed conclusion detached from history as well as proper dramatic pull. Ultimately the short-cuts introduced manage to lessen the impact of the story, despite the true sequence of events being such a strong source of material. An example of how tampering with history to deliver a reduxed movie version of events was extremely detrimental to the end product.
Time has not been all that gracious for "The Untouchables" as character interaction feels outdated, mainly due to excess amount of corny corn on the cob, rushed developed and solutions unacceptable by todays standards making one question the reason behind Sean Connery's Oscar award.
Nonetheless several tense scenes (the train station stake-out, the house attack on Jim Malone or the border crossing) cause the movie to stand out and remain a memorable experience, despite the countless other flaws inherent to the story. The moral ambiguity, however glossed over and underdeveloped, of the story, with Elliot Ness showing a disdain for the prohibition law itself, but a unwaning support for its enforceability, while Jim Malone drinks alcohol from his hidden stash, gives a powerful insight into the absurdity of the times. The fact that almost no one stood behind the law, indeed allowed for the creation of crime syndicates, where the whole society basically showed its fingers to the lawmakers and their ineptitude to see the bigger picture.