The Untouchables

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2012)

The music under the opening titles of The Untouchables, from Ennio Morricone's Oscar-nominated score, sets the tone of what is to come; the quick-tempo beat suggests hard-hitting action, and the stealthy horns promise something sinister. The movement over and around the title itself indicates other qualities of the approaching feature: shadowy, stylish, and artful. These movements, however, do not foretell the entire story. Triumphant fanfare will later signal legendary deeds, and somber winds will mourn fallen heroes. We open with a view from the ceiling (a favorite perspective of director Brian De Palma) of an opulent parlor where Alphonse Capone (Robert De Niro) takes a shave. De Niro looks larger than usual, having ostensibly gained the weight appropriate for the role, and his portrayal of Capone is appropriately larger than life. Screenwriter David Mamet's signature brand of stylized, naturalistic dialogue becomes immediately recognizable as Al fields questions from pandering members of the press, who hang onto every one of his words and laugh at every one of his jokes. Despite Capone's claim to the contrary, violence comes quick, as the next scene follows a little girl into a shop where a salesman unsuccessfully attempts to peddle beer to the owner. The owner and the little girl both pay for the owner's refusal to buy with their lives. In a later scene, the mother of that little girl thanks Eliot Ness (played by Kevin Costner, in one of his first and finest feature performances) for taking on the dangerous task of bringing the murderous gangster to justice. To do that, Ness needs to recruit some help, and he starts, quite accidentally, with a beat cop named Jim Malone. This is Sean Connery at his best. His portrayal of Malone rightfully earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and this performance is worth more than all of his earlier turns as James Bond put together. Sporting an Irish brogue, Malone bestows wit and wisdom onto his fellow Untouchables, which come to include sharpshooting Italian-American George Stone/Giuseppe Petri (Andy Garcia) and FBI accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith). This terrific team of four covers a nice range of maturity and street smarts. Stone, aside from protecting the property and citizenry of the city of Chicago, also shields the film from ethnicism, and his recruiting scene is one of the funniest in the movie. Wallace also provides some comic relief, as he moves from pencil-pushing bean counter to heat-packing avenger. More importantly, he provides Ness with the idea of bringing Capone in on income tax evasion. Ness finds strange irony in the idea of trying a murderer for not paying his taxes, but is trying him for running liquor any less insidious, especially when it is apparent that Ness is merely following the letter of Prohibition law by enforcing the Falstead Act? Malone fuels the whole operation by blackmailing information on Capone's movements out of an old acquaintance from the police force, George (Brad Sullivan), who is obviously playing both sides for profit. Why this fact escapes Malone is not clear. In a movie so packed with violent, bloody conflict, it is notable that the father-son relationship that develops between Malone and Ness provides the film its heartbeat. When Malone falls, Ness's pursuit acquires an aspect of revenge, and although the real Eliot Ness never took down Capone's top enforcer (Nitti actually committed suicide), fictional Eliot Ness's discovery and chase of Malone's killer, played to slimy perfection by Billy Drago, constitutes one of the greatest scenes in a movie characterized by one great scene after another. When he finally catches up with Nitti, Ness has an opportunity to take him out, but decides instead to do the legal thing and arrest him. "I'm gonna come see you burn, you son of a bitch," he tells Nitti as he cuffs him, "because you killed my friend." Nitti decides not to let well enough alone: "Your friend died screaming like a stuck Irish pig. Now you think about that when I beat the rap." Morricone's violins screech as we see in Ness's face the snapping of the strings that had been keeping his mental instrument together, and he sends Nitti over the edge of the rooftop, screaming all the way down, Ness taunting him from above, "Did he sound anything like that?" Mamet and De Palma don't stop there. Back inside the courtroom, Stone asks Ness where Nitti is. Ness responds, "He's in the car." We creep up behind the car through which Nitti's body met with its bloody demise, as Morricone's violently insistent strings continue. A tad much, perhaps, but isn't the essence of overindulgence to linger too long on something that's too good to let alone?