"I think I'll have a drink"

Rating: 9/10 (23 March 2008)

Quite a few years ago, I was randomly flicking through channels at a relatively late hour for anything that might be worth watching. Suddenly, my finger froze on the controls, and I paused, immediately transfixed with the image that now occupied the television screen. A baby's carriage was tumbling down the stairs of a railway station, descending towards oblivion in heartrending slow-motion, every agonising moment meticulously framed for maximum tension. Kevin Costner, currently engaged in a relentless gunfight with armed gangsters, dives desperately towards the floundering infant, but the carriage is consistently out of his reach, and a devastating conclusion is imminent. At that moment, I'd never heard the name Brian De Palma, I'd never seen 'The Battleship Potemkin (1925),' and I didn't even know the name of the film I was actually watching, but I found myself positively spellbound by what I was witnessing  this sequence was a perfect organism of suspense and intrigue. It has, unbelievably, taken me years to finally track down 'The Untouchables (1987),' De Palma's stylish take on the 1930s Prohibition era, and I can only say that the wait has been more than worthwhile.
The 1959 ABC television series, "The Untouchables," ran for four seasons and 118 episodes, and starred Robert Stack as Eliot Ness, the dedicated Prohibition agent who worked to put Al Capone behind bars. The story lines were adapted, albeit with much artistic license, from Ness' own 1957 autobiography of the same name, published shortly after his death. Director Brian De Palma, noted for his extreme if derivative visual style, had already achieved perhaps his greatest success with the bravura gangster picture, 'Scarface (1983),' starring an unforgettable Al Pacino as Cuban drug lord Tony Montana {this film was, in fact, a loose remake of Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson's 'Scarface (1932),' based on the life of Al Capone}. In producing 'The Untouchables (1987),' De Palma has crafted one of the most handsome and energetic gangster movies I've seen, and the two hour running time flew by so incredibly swiftly that I gazed at the clock in disbelief once the film had come to an end; is it a valid complaint to remark that a film should have continued for an hour more?
Kevin Costner stars as Agent Eliot Ness, whose dedication towards bringing down arrogant and brutal gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro) has been constantly thwarted by the corruption rampant throughout the police force. Compiling a small task-force of trusted cops, comprising gruff Irishman Jim Malone (Sean Connery), crack-shot Italian George Stone (Andy Garcia) and meek accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), Ness sets about disrupting Capone's illegal alcohol ring, and tracing shifty income tax dealings back to the infamous crime boss. Costner is strong in the leading role, particularly when his actions place his family in jeopardy, and Connery deservedly received the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Ness' brisk, irritable and racist mentor. After years of shamelessly imitating Alfred Hitchcock's film-making style, De Palma finally comes into his own, and the railway station shootout  a respectful homage to Eisenstein's "Odessa Steps" sequence  is a perfect construction of suspense, every minute detail absorbed by the audience with a continually-quickening heartbeat. As far as gangster pictures not directed by Francis Ford Coppola are concerned, this is about as good as they come.