The Untouchables

Plot synopsis:
Prohibition in the United States has led to an organized crime wave in the 1920s and early 1930s. Various gangs bootleg vast amounts of alcohol and control their businesses with violence and extortion. The problem is most serious in Chicago, where gang leader Al Capone (Robert De Niro) has nearly the whole city (even the city's mayor) under his control, and supplies poor-quality liquor at high prices. While being interviewed by a reporter, Capone insists that he is a legitimate businessman who is responding to the "will of the people", their need to drink alcohol. A Capone associate, the Bowtie Man (Vito D'Ambrosio), shakes down a restaurant owner who has chosen to buy from one of Capone's competitors. The owner refuses to be intimidated, and the Bowtie Man appears to back off. Some time later, Capone's white-suited enforcer, Frank Nitti (Billy Drago), enters the restaurant, drops a briefcase next to a chair, and casually walks away. The briefcase contains a bomb, which destroys the restaurant, killing most of its patrons, including a little girl who tried to bring the briefcase back to Nitti.Treasury Department agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is put in charge of leading the crusade against Capone and his empire. Ness' initial strategy is to conduct raids using a large squad of uniformed officers, but his first attempt fails when he breaks into a warehouse storing umbrellas (although it is implied by Capone's reaction to the newspaper headline about Ness' mistake that it was indeed a liquor warehouse, but his men had been tipped off by the corrupt police chief, Mike Dorsett (Richard Bradford).Embarrassed over the fiasco and seeking ideas for a change of tactics, Ness has a chance encounter with Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), an incorruptible Irish beat cop who understands the way Capone does business, and decides to ask for his help. Reluctant at first, Malone urges Ness to become as ruthless as the gangsters he wants to take down: "He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone." With corruption running rampant throughout the Chicago police force, Malone suggests that Ness recruit directly from the police academy in order to find team members who have not yet had a chance to come under Capone's influence. They start with the academy's best shooter, George Stone (Andy Garcia). When he reveals his real name is Giuseppe Petri, Malone is leery about having an Italian-American on the team, but Stone quickly wins him over with his coolness under pressure. With their fourth addition, bookish Treasury accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), detailed to Chicago from Washington, Ness has built an incorruptible team capable of combating Capone.Their first raid takes place in a local post office whose storeroom is used to house Capone's illegal liquor. Malone and most of the police know where the alcohol is, but they leave it alone because no one wants to provoke Capone and his gang. The raid succeeds without incident, though Capone later kills the man who had been in charge of the storeroom with a baseball bat at a large banquet. As the four pick up steam and become noted by the press, Wallace begins to probe the finances of the Capone organization. He believes that a feasible method of prosecution is through a tax evasion charge, if nothing else. At one point, Ness is visited by a Chicago alderman (Del Close) who is also under Capone's control. The alderman tries to bribe Ness into dropping the investigation, but Ness angrily rejects the offer and throws him out in full view of the team. As he leaves, he mockingly refers to them as "untouchable" and says that Capone, who is known as a cop-killer, can get to anyone he chooses, one way or another.The alderman's words prove to be true when Nitti makes veiled threats toward Ness and his family outside his house, and drives off before Ness can confront him. Realizing that Capone has targeted him, Ness orders his wife and daughter moved to a safer place; Malone and Stone then bring word of a large whiskey shipment coming in from Canada, and the team flies north to set up a raid at the border.During the raid, Ness' team and a squad of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers intercept the shipment, arresting or killing everyone involved. Malone captures one of Capone's bookkeepers, George (Brad Sullivan), and the team tries to persuade him to provide evidence against Capone. George initially refuses to cooperate, even after Malone assaults him. However, he changes his mind once Malone shoots a thug (who was actually already dead) in the mouth to frighten him. Enraged even further, Capone orders his men to hunt down and kill Ness (even Ness' family), knowing that with Ness dead, the Untouchables will be finished. Ness' wife, meanwhile, has just given birth to their second child, whom they name "John" with a middle name James in honor of his new friendship with Malone.At the police station, where the Untouchables are being congratulated, Wallace prepares to escort George into protective custody. However, they are both shot and killed by Nitti, disguised as the policeman operating the elevator; when the bodies are found, the word "TOUCHABLE" has been written on the wall in their blood. Ness is left with insufficient evidence to press charges, and the frustration drives him into challenging Capone in public to a physical fight in front of his son and several armed henchmen. Malone intervenes and forces Ness to back down, defusing the confrontation.Malone tells Ness to stall the district attorney from dropping the case while he searches for information regarding Walter Payne (Jack Kehoe), another of Capone's bookkeepers. A subpoena is issued for Payne, prompting Capone's men to make plans to get him out of town. Malone angrily confronts Dorsett, knowing that he sold out Wallace, demanding information on where Capone plans to move Payne. After a brutal fistfight, Dorsett shares what he knows, but warns Malone that Capone's assassins will retaliate. Malone calls Ness and instructs him to meet him at his apartment. While he waits, the Bowtie Man sneaks in through a window, armed with a knife. A shotgun-wielding Malone berates him for "bringing a knife to a gunfight," and throws him out. This proves to be a trap, however, as Nitti, perched on a nearby fire escape, shoots Malone with a tommy gun. He is barely alive when Ness and Stone find him, and he shows Ness which train Payne will be taking before dying in his arms.Ness and Stone arrive at Union Station and find Payne guarded by several gangsters. One of the bodyguards recognizes Ness from the earlier altercation with Capone and quickly alerts his comrades. After a fierce shootout (an homage to the famous Odessa Steps scene from The Battleship Potemkin), the Bowtie Man decides to cut his losses and uses Payne a human shield, threatening to kill him unless Ness and Stone back down. Stone shows his marksmanship skills by shooting the Bowtie Man in the mouth. Out of gratitude, Payne offers his full cooperation with the investigation.Payne testifies in court against Capone, admitting his role in channeling money to Capone over the last three years. Ness, however, notices Capone relaxed and even smiling, despite the probability of serving a long prison sentence, and also sees Nitti carrying a gun in court. He takes Nitti out of the courtroom with the bailiff and discovers that Nitti has permission from the corrupt mayor of Chicago to carry the weapon. Ness then identifies Nitti as Malone's murderer after finding Malone's address on a matchbook in Nitti's pocket.Panicking, Nitti shoots the bailiff and runs up to the roof, the two exchanging gunfire through the building. Eventually, Ness gets Nitti in his sights, but cannot bring himself to shoot the man in cold blood. Nitti gives himself up to Ness, Ness telling him that he'll see him burn because he murdered Malone. Stating that Malone died "screaming like a stuck Irish pig" and that Ness should think about that when he, Nitti, is tried and convicted for the murder but set free anyway. Enraged at the thought that Nitti will escape punishment for his crimes, and provoked to revenge, Ness pushes Nitti off the roof. He shouts to the screaming thug, "Did he sound anything like that?" before Nitti dies on impact with a parked car.Back inside the courthouse, Stone shows Ness a document from Nitti's jacket that shows bribes paid to the jurors, explaining Capone's relaxed mood. The judge has no intention of using it as evidence and is fully prepared to let Capone go free, inadvertently revealing his own corruption or fear of the crime boss. In a last ditch effort, Ness talks the judge into doing the right thing, bluffing him into believing that the judge's name is among those in the bookkeeper's ledger of payoffs. As a result, the judge decides to switch this jury with the one in another courtroom. Before the trial can continue, Capone's lawyer changes the plea of "not guilty" to one of "guilty" without Capone's consent. Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison. Ness taunts Capone, who pretends not to hear as he is taken into custody.As he packs up his office, Ness contemplates the Saint Jude medallion that Malone had carried with him for many years (linked to his call box key), and which Malone had given to him before dying. Ness gives the medallion to Stone, reasoning that since Jude is the patron saint of police officers, Malone would have wanted him to have it. Out on the street, a reporter wishes to have a word from Ness, but Ness modestly downplays his role in the showdown. When the reporter mentions that Prohibition is due to be repealed and asks what Ness might do then, Ness responds, "I think I'll have a drink."

Tags: revenge, historical, murder, violence

Review:
Ness then recruited Jim Malone (Sean Connery), a veteran cop who walked a beat and was well versed in doing things `The Chicago way,' and George Stone (Andy Garcia) a crack shot recruited right out of the Police Academy.
Connery gives an exemplary performance as Malone (for which he received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), the tough, Irish cop who becomes something of a tutor to Ness, letting him know from the start what he's getting himself into.
Costner gives a solid performance as Ness, but he is somewhat overshadowed by the actors and the characters who surround him, especially Connery as Malone, and Robert De Niro, who as Capone is absolutely menacing and larger-than-life.
Extremely well crafted and delivered by De Palma, who had a great screenplay (by David Mamet) and a terrific cast with which to work, `The Untouchables' is a powerful, intense film that successfully evokes this particular period in the history of America.
This belittles his performance which I can safely say is the best of his career and one of the best displays of acting that I have ever seen.The film also has a memorable score made by the legendary Ennio Morricone who is perhaps best known for the work he did with the equally legendary western director Sergio Leone (who doesn't know the score from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and in my opinion the score he did for The Untouchables is the best he has ever made.
Once again everything works.All in all The Untouchables is a riveting story which is highly recommendable to all fans of crime/gangster movies.10/10 - on my top 10 of best films.
His quest is really tough, as his opponent is determined and powerful, but he has the help of three invaluable partners: Malone (Connery), a no-nonsense experienced cop, Wallace (Martin Smith), an accountant who will try to help bring tax charges against Capone, and Stone (Garcia), a great shooter.As I noted before the film is brilliantly directed, with some scenes such as the one with the baseball bat, or the one with the baby in the train station, having become classic.
"The Untouchables" is the story of Elliot Ness (perfectly played by Kevin Costner) who tries to bring down Chicago Mob boss Al Capone (Robert DeNiro in one of his most under-rated roles) during the early-1930s.
Connery is a given performance wise (accent aside of course, but then again who cares when the character portrayal is as sharp as it is here?) but it is Costner as Eliot Ness that shines like the star he was soon to become, it's a magic performance that manages to fuse genuine tenderness of family love with little trips to the dark side in pursuit of making good triumph over evil.I love that the film is showing how violence and fear affects families, mother and child is a theme that is central to the film's heartbeat, notice how some of the more violent scenes are followed by tender scenes of Ness and his family.
Robert De Niro revisits his gangster movies ("The Godfather", "Goodfellas" etc.) in a curious and comic interpretation of Al Capone, and Sean Connery plays a street policeman of Irish descent.
Elliot Ness(Kevin Costner) gets the government's go-ahead to form his own particular group of relentless, honest Federal Agents(Sean Connery,Charles Martin Smith,Andy Garcia) to combat Al Capone(Robert De Niro) and his hoodlums, specially Frank Nitti(Billy Drago).Ness reunites honorable, upright cops to fight corruption and the grandiose mobster.
Kevin Costner is excellent as impulsive and obstinate enforcer fighting against the underworld crime .Sean Connery(Academy-award winning acting) plays to perfection a veteran, incorruptible police who takes under his experience and protection to Ness.And Robert De Niro overacting in a serio-comic role as the nasty Capone.Flamboyant and rich photography by Stephen H Burum.
The motion picture is beautifully directed by Brian De Palma.This superb recounting will like immensely to Kevin Costner and Sean Connery fans.Another adaptations about Capone are mostly realized for television, such as ¨The Scarface mob(1962)¨by Phil Karlson with Robert Stack and Neville Brand and ¨Elliot Ness¨with Tom Amandes and William Forshyte..
Zooming in on prohibition-era Chicago, a dirty, dingy, crime-infested retreat of mafia, the film lets us know a special unit headed by Kevin Costner whose objective is to frame the super villain himself  Al Capone (Robert De Niro).There are, in effect, three or four things that truly stand out about The Untouchablesan otherwise standard crime by-the-numbers rompand at least one of them should be attributed to the surface of the spectacle; the costumework and settings are superbly breathed life into, as is De Palma's accolade, with a screen that is awash with lyrical colours and accompanied by a swelly, jazzy moonlit music score.
Malone is given, by far, the best dialogue in David Mamet's script as when he instructs Kevin Costner on how to get to Capone: "He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue." Another worthy staple to The Untouchables is its strong individual scenes.
Brian De Palma, coming down off of the landmark gangster classic "Scarface" (1983), continued the trend with this carefully woven tale (screenplay complements of David Mamet) about Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner, perfectly cast) and his band of incorruptible federal agents.
De Palma is at his greatest in directorial excellence in staging stellar, heart-pumping action sequences (with the Morricone score blasting away too), which come to include the Canadian liquor bust, the train-station shootout, and the ending rooftop chase between Ness and Capone's #1 hit-man Frank Nitti (Billy Drago).
He enlists the help of an aging beat cop (Sean Connery in an Oscar-winning performance), a nebbish accountant (Charles Martin Smith) and a young police cadet who's a crack shot with a pistol (Andy Garcia) and begins taking down Capone "the Chicago way".
The movie was meant as a cross between a classy gangster film and a good old-fashioned cops'n'robbers shoot-'em-up, and was highly successful at that.The acting is great all around, with Costner and Connery in particular giving one of their best performances.
De Niro, who made a career playing gangsters, takes the logical step of playing THE single most famous gangster of all time, Al Capone, and DeNiro, Method actor that he is, does a great job managing to look, sound, and act the part, despite very limited screen time (does ANYONE come away from this film not remembering the infamous baseball scene?).
He provides an exhilarating, heroic score which captures the feel and tone of the movie perfectly (though for my money, the heartbreaking "Death Theme", played on solo saxophone, is the best track).Overall, "The Untouchables" is NOT a great gangster film, like "The Godfather" or "Once Upon A Time In America", nor is it an accurate account of the real-life events it portrays.
Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia and Robert De Niro star as the main characters and all deliver performances worthy of the film, both expressing their characters realistically and in a style fully according to the film-noir genre.
one of my favourite films of all time ,not sure how close to the truth it is but don't really care ,ive seen documentaries on this subject and they all conflict ,so just sit back and enjoy.Costner's out to get the city under control from the brilliant de'niro who plays Capone,and appears untouchable.he recruits a few hand picked hard men with no real families and not a lot to loose ,including Andy Garcia ,cheeky sharpshooter with no fear ,and Sean Connery as a hard faced beat cop who's not afraid of upsetting anyone.Costner plays Elliot ness as a calm no nonsense cop with balls of steel .the movie oozes atmosphere ,combined with action and some memorable scenes ,look out for baby ,pram,Garcia sharpshooter scene ,it makes my hair stand on end.de'niros Capone is faultless,you just wanna shoot him in the head and wipe the smile of his chops.anyway grab a few drinks ,some popcorn and just enjoy ,its great..
Here he not only quotes from other directors, but develops some iconography of his own, like a famous moment when Capone expounds at length about his love for baseball and another when Ness is told about "The Chicago Way" by an older cop named Malone (Sean Connery): "He sends one of yours to the hospital, you sent one of his to the morgue." One shootout scene in a railroad terminal managed to both quote a famous film ("The Battleship Potemkin") and become uniquely famous on its own.The body count is matched only by the cliché count.
This telling of Prohibition-era Chicago, with Costner in the lead, boasts a tremendous performance from Sean Connery as the wise, old cop who teams with Eliot Ness to stop Al Capone.
"The Untouchables" was the latest film I took a five dollar bargain with.Phenomenal credentials, a Brian DePalma film (director of such great films as "Carlito's Way" and the aforementioned "Scarface") written by David Mamet (who has penned "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Wag the Dog") and starring Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Sean Connery and Robert De Niro as Al Capone, the infamous mobster.
He makes the movie real and what lets me down with his role is the mere fact that he is only in it a few times, and when he leaves you want more.The great Sean Connery received an Oscar for his role in this film and I can't disagree with that decision any stronger.
This is director Di Palma's big budgeted highly fictionalized account of Eliot Ness and his team going after Al Capone to get him convicted and sent to prison.Future bad movie king Kevin Costner is a bland and unconvincing Ness who shows not one wit of charisma in the role.Sean Connery is good-but not too convincing as the Irish American cop,and Andy Garcia-as the Italian American cop is probably the best thing this mess can give us.
Di Niro as Capone seems to be doing a "Saturday Night Live" skit in a role that he was probably paid big bucks to do.The scene at the dinner when he makes those corny baseball analogies before caving in the skull of a fellow gangster with a baseball bat is thoroughly predictable and seems to be a leftover that never made its way into the equally bad "Scarface" a few years before this.This is not really a movie in the conventional sense.
Garcia is good, as is Costner, the earnestness which always characterizes his performances finding a perfect match in the character of Ness.The bridge scene is so bad that it almost ruins the whole film.
Upon its release a film critic commented that calling The Untouchables the best gangster film since The Godfather II is not saying much as there have been hardly any good gangster films since then.Brian De Palma known as a visually interesting but flawed director got a rather campy television series and made a bravado film filled with his visual touches inspired by his love of Hitchcock and meshed it with an artful gangster thriller scripted by David Mamet.Kevin Costner plays the boy scout Elliot Ness in Prohibition era Chicago initially humiliated but after meeting beat cop Malone (Sean Connery) assembles a team of Untouchables to take down Al Capone (Robert De Niro) for tax evasion.The film looks terrific.
De Niro apparently had each hair in his head individually plucked in order to have Capone's moon face look.Sean Connery dominates as the Irish cop Malone teaching the street smarts to the green Ness on how to take down crime 'the Chicago way.' Yet this is a cop with a Scots accent and who can forget the line: 'brings a gun to a knife fight' before being shot a thousand times.Andy Garcia gives a star making performance as the cool rookie and sharpshooter George Stone and Charles Martin Smith almost steals the film as the meek agent Oscar Wallace whose idea it was to go after Capone for tax fraud.
Continuing my plan to watch every Kevin Costner movie in order, I come to The Untouchables Plot In A Paragraph: Federal Agent Eliot Ness (KC) sets out to stop Al Capone (Robert De Niro) and he assembles a small hand-picked team who can not be bought.OK, I'll get it out if the way straight away, it's historically inaccurate, but what it does have, is great direction, great performances, great sets, great costumes, a great score and a great screenplay.
He is not meant to be an over the top action hero, and had he gave a more energetic performance (like he gave in Fandango and Silverado) it might have ruined things.De Niro is a larger than life Al Capone, Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith both offer solid support as does Billy Drago, but the movies best performance belongs to Sean Connery as Malone, a man who always has a one sentence rule/quote for every occasion.
Perhaps De Palma's masterpiece, The Untouchables won the Academy's hearts and Sean Connery finally got his Oscar, which was long overdue, for the role of a tough but honored beat cop, Malone, who helps Elliot (Costner) Ness take down Al Capone (De Niro)."The Untouchables" was a true gangland masterpiece, that takes you from the mean streets of Chicago to the mountainous United States-Canadian border, while never letting go of your attention for even a second.
Honourable mention by the way to the other untouchables : Charles Martin Smith as Oscar Wallace and Andy Garcia as 'George Stone".The other highlights of the film occur in many unforgettable scenes, one featuring a dinner table and the other, a train station, proving De Palma's directing ability to create suspenseful situations with the patience and talent of a craftsman.
I simply hope that those who criticize "The Untouchables" for being over the top, campy or laughable, start looking at "Scarface" with a more serious eye and realize its greatness in comparison.Anyway, if the movie is victim of the Costner syndrome, as becoming the cool-to-be-hated thing, it also became one of the most famous gangster films ever, despite or thanks to its flaws, who knows?
Ness's companies includes Malone (Sean Connery), an old and smart street officer who's up for anything, sometimes following rules and other times creating his own rules; Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) an accountant that wants to arrest Capone for not paying his taxes; and Stone (Andy Garcia) the best shooter of the police force.
But with Brian De Palma directing, a great story developed and a amazing ensemble cast "The Untouchables" turned out to be one of the most remarkable movies of that decade and Sean Connery proved to be a actor even more talented than he is, and earn a Oscar in the following year.De Palma is known for his technique on editing, planning movies almost like Hitchcock (his idol) and here everything is done marvelously well.
I never get tired of watching this movie and see a great cast performing incredibly well, it has a good story (way better than some today's movies) and it's one of the best films of the 1980's.
Kevin Costner is your basic good guy and Robert DeNiro joins a great list of actors like Rod Steiger, Neville Brand, and Jason Robards, Jr. in interpreting the volatile crime boss of Chicago who has come down in legend himself.Costner's a Boy Scout in this business and as Sean Connery says to him, those kind of rules are out the window in dealing with people like Al Capone.
Surprisingly, the top billed Kevin Costner seems a little tense and upstaged by Robert De Niro and Sean Connery, and the great supporting performances of Andy Garcia and Charles M Smith and Billy Drago.The plot moves at a good clip, there's lots of excitement and a climatic cop-gangster shoot-out that's probably one of the best ever!
Mostly fiction, little fact, the story of the 'untouchable' Treasury agent Elliot Ness that took the badest of the bad bootleggers, the infamous unconvictable Alfonse Capone (who else could do this but Di Niro?) Brian De Palma, teamed up with the colorfully rich cinematography of Stephan Burum create a comic book like action adventure that's sure to be entertaining and a good choice if there's nothing to catch your fancy in the new release shelf..
I guess Ennio Morricone's musical score, Sean Connery's performance as Jimmy Malone, Murruhm's photography, and Robert De Niro's performance as Al Capone are absolutely great and the costumes are good but, let's face it, what else?
Spaghetti Western legendary composer Ennio Morricone gives a very nice score indeed with touches of Inspector Gadget, which fixes the main element which hampered Scarface, its score.A treat to watch, with good performances, Untouchables announces itself as a prestigeous picture from its credits, which are very handsome indeed, and i believe it lives up to them.De Niro and Connery could have been a little better - but Costner holds it all together here.This is definitely the best de Palma picture i've seen, but probably not as original and memorable as Scarface.Highlight: the sequence with the little girl in the corner store at the beginning, and Malone's final scene..
Robert De Niro, as Al Capone and Andy Garcia, as a talented rookie cop, give good performances, and Kevin Costner gives a subtle, underrated performance as Elliot Ness.
Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith and Andy Garcia are all good, Robert de Niro plays Al Capone well, and Sean Connery walked away with an Academy Award.
Also, we have Sean Connery who plays Malone, the man who helps Ness put Capone in prison and I think he steals the show in his Oscar-winning performance as best-supporting actor.
De Palma also masterfully directed the movie and made good choices for his cast which consists of Costner, Connery, De Niro, and Andy Garcia.
`The Untouchables' is a solid movie, containing great performances from Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, and Robert De Niro, with more than adequate performances all-around.