The #1 Movie Disappointment of All Time

Rating: 1/10 (10 October 2005)

Even more than the first STAR TREK movie, THE UNTOUCHABLES was the biggest letdown of any movie ever. Both films were based upon brilliant and widely popular television series (by Desilu Productions), and each was highly anticipated by fans of those programs for many years. THE UNTOUCHABLES was the slickest piece of TV action drama that had ever been done. Besides the brilliant production design and the inspired idea of having Walter Winchell doing a voice-over narration, was the fine-tuned development of each and every character in the Eliot Ness Untouchables Team. By giving us a strong sense of their background and motivation we understood exactly why these men were "untouchable" that no bribe, death threat, intimidation, or anything else could deter their objective to bring down the mob.
Brian dePalma's limp and pathetic imitation has the actors dressed up and saying, Oh, yeah! We're the untouchables; as they strut along like Sinatra's Ocean's 11. No character development or motivation to give any of them credibility. What follows is a travesty of a picture; including dePalma's "tribute" to Russia's director Sergi Eisenstein and his famous "baby carriage scene" in "Battleship Potemkin." Equally pointless in Potemkin as in Untouchables, a runaway baby carriage just rolls right along, down a long outdoor flight of stairs, cutting thru the action. In Potemkin, it was silly enough; but in Untouchables, and knowing dePalma is doing his artsy-wartsy "tribute" it only raises one more howl to the parade of nonsense going down.
I'd have paid ANYTHING to see this movie: $20, $50, whatever. We saw it opening night. The price back then was $4.00 I think. It wasn't worth a dime.