A very good film, but should have been so much more

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2013)

As a gangster film, The Untouchables is among the likes of Goodfellas and The Departed, however as a film about the hunt by Eliot Ness for Al Capone, it should have been so much more.
Don't get me wrong it's a very good film, the performance by Andy Garcia as Giuseppe Petri was brilliant (he was my favourite character in the entire film and Robert De Niro as notorious gangster Al Capone is one of his best performances I have seen, it's up there with James Conway from Goodfellas. However, not all the performances hit home. Kevin Costner's portrayal of Eliot Ness was anything but spectacular, which is a great shame as Kevin Costner is a very good actor. Also Sean Connery's portrayal of Jim Malone is by no means bad, it's just that his character is Irish and, yeah, whatever that accent was, it wasn't Irish.
What the film does really well though is how it is shot. The sweeping shots of Chicago look magnificent. However, on a technical standpoint nothing else really impresses like it should. There is one scene in particular where they use slow mo. The reason I bring this up is that it is one thing to use slow mo but it is another to over use it, especially as it is only this one scene that uses it, it does really take you out of what is meant to be a pinnacle moment of the film and it never really brings you out of that area and gets you immersed in the film again. The music can also be distracting, for the most part it's okay, it does its job but when an important part of the film rears its head, it goes all operatic which really doesn't fit the tone or the setting of the movie, which again slightly draws you out of the movie.
In conclusion, The Untouchables is one of the best gangster movies I have ever seen, however, for what it is and how much of a defining moment the plan to bring down Al Capone was in history, it just wasn't enough and for what I was expecting, I was a little let down. I just hope Scarface is better.