I Wasn't Impressed

Rating: 5/10 (8 November 2004)

THE UNTOUCHABLES came out in an explosion of acclaim in 1987 with the critics hailing it as " a masterpiece " and " An instant classic " but after seeing the movie I was wondering if I'd been watching the same movie .
My own theory as to why so many cynical movie critics liked it might have had something to do with the very poor standard of movies in the mid to late 80s which seemed to involve either teenagers getting killed in a variety of gruesome ways or a couple of well dressed cops pointing their guns while the billboard hot one hundred plays in the background . Off the top of my head I can think of only one movie from the same period that deserved much praise and that was PLATOON
It could also be remembered that THE UNTOUCHABLES has a great cast list with DeNiro , Connery and a couple of rising stars in Kevin Costner and Andy Garcia , but the screenplay fails to focus on any one character . You do get the impression that it has been re-written to death in order to accommodate the big name stars . Personally I thought Capone should have been the main protagonist with Ness in the background with tough wily Irish cop Malone absent altogether . Maybe that was the intention with the original script but it had been changed with the casting coup involved ? Sticking one or two factual elements into the story would have helped too
The more De Palma movies I see the more repetitive his directing techniques become . Long panning shots , slow motion sequences featuring bloody deaths . It was good in CARRIE but had become old hat here
Oh and if it was such a great 1987 release how come it didn't get a massive load of Oscar nominations ?