Brilliant, just plain brilliant.

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2006)

There is something about Zuit suits and Thompson machine guns that naturally attracts me to these types of films. However, knowing full well about the subject of the film, and the fact that it's widely praised pretty much everywhere, I needed no gimmicks to get my attention. This based-on-a-true-story film about a group of law-enforcement agents, led by Eliot Ness, is made up of four men who join up to stop the flow of crime and illegal booze from Al Capone.
While the actual group had nine men, this premature depiction of the team is made up of some of the best acting I've seen. While I'm not the biggest Costner fan, I think this was one of his best performances. He basically nailed the by-the-book, good-hearted hero role on the head, flawlessly. Still, the one thing that makes this film one of my all-time favorites is the spectacular performance by Sean Connery as the racist, old-school street cop, Jim Malone. His rugged sense of humor and course actions give the film a certain charm that couldn't have come from any of the other characters. Oh, I can't forget De Niro, though. If there was one person who was meant to play a gangster or mob boss, it was De Niro.
The main thing that surprises me about this film, is the fact that it fallows that cliché "path of the hero," with Costner as the timid hero, receiving his call to action and Connery as the disgruntled mentor, pushing and guiding the hero along. What's surprising, though, is that this film still finds a way to make itself seem intriguing in a whole new way, as if to not even copy that formula. I don't know how they did it, but I love this films and I can honestly say it was worth every penny.