Les incorruptibles

This one isn't holding up all that well in my books. There are some undoubtedly fantastic scenes and Oscar-worthy performances. But the overall quality is spotty.

Connery's performance remains one of my all-time favorites. His first meeting with Ness is very enjoyable. His death scene never fails to move me every single time I watch it. Great musical score as well.

DeNiro's Capone is too one-dimensional (no fault of his), Martin-Smith's is entirely cartoonish. 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. Connery manages to provide some saving grace with his interrogation tactics and opposition to running.

It seems as if this film is composed of nothing but caricatures, from the photographer to the police trainee, but the performances are so good and there are so many strong scenes that they somehow balance out the crude (read banal) writing. A friend of mine saw an interview with Mamet in which he said that the best stuff was actually edited out of the final product. Ya gotta hate studios. The Untouchables really could have been much better than it already is.

I never could quite reconcile Kevin Costner's somewhat-high and weak voice with some of macho characters he played when he was younger, but I can get past that after a film has settled into the story. Costner is a good enough actor to make me believe he's anyone after awhile.

However, after years of growing up watching Robert Stack playing "Elliot Ness" on TV on the hit series, "The Untouchables," it took me a bit to accept Costner in that role. That part will always belong to Mr. Stack.

At first, he just did not speak with the authority of a tough Chicago cop out to get Al Capone and the racketeers from the Prohibition Age in Chicago. His partner, "Oscar Wallace," played by the little nerdy-looking Charles Martin Smith as a gun-toting T-Man, is even harder to believe. Of the "good guys," Andy Garcia is the only likeble and believable guy. Sean Connery has the best character in the film ("Jim Malone") and is the most interesting to watch.

Nonetheless, it's a good story with good characters and just about he right amount of action. It moves very well, which tells me the movie is entertaining. There are a few memorable scenes, such as the shootout at the train station with the baby carriage descending the stairway and a memorable scene with Robert De Niro as Capone.

This is a tough, very violent and bloody movie.....nothing like the old TV show.

Outstanding production that was the best film of 1987 with the exception of the very dominant "The Last Emperor". "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. Illegal liquor smuggling and other much more serious crimes are running amok and corruption is all over. Costner realizes very fast that he must hand-pick his own men to bring DeNiro down for good. Thus he enlists the help of a young cop from the academy (Andy Garcia), a wimpy book-keeper (Charles Martin Smith) and a hard-nosed Irish beat cop (Oscar-winner Sean Connery in the performance of a lifetime). Together they slowly start to peel through the multiple layers of protection to get DeNiro for good. It seems that the fact that DeNiro has been lax in paying his income taxes could be his ultimate downfall. Beautifully directed by Brian De Palma, "The Untouchables" stands very tall with the other great productions of the 1980s. Ennio Morricone's Oscar-nominated score is one of the finest the cinema has ever experienced. Really excellent. I have no negative comments on this production. 5 stars out of 5.

Somehow, I just got around to this film after over thirty years. Kevin Costner plays the federal agent Elliot Ness. He pursues Al Capone during Prohibition. His main partner is Sean Connery as a Beat cop in 1930 Chicago. Robert DeNiro is Capone and all three are great. Connery won an Oscar. Ironically, it was tax evasion that was Capone's downfall. This is not a spoiler, as everyone knows the old story. Even so, the Untouchables is a violent and funny adventure. The script is precise and Brian DePalma's direction is as good as expected; never a dull moment. The two hours just flies by.

Director Brian De Palma is the son of a surgeon, and perhaps this explains his high tolerance for the bloodshed that has translated into brutal, raw scenes in 'The Untouchables'. Then again, this film is set during one of the bloodiest chapters of American history and demands unflinching depiction accordingly. 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. Another worthy accolade is of course Sean Connery as detective Malone – an American-Irish cop on the beat and down with the ways of the street – who may deliver one of the worst accents in film history, but makes up for what he lacks in verbal power with heaps of charisma. 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. In the front row for these sits the notorious baseball bat scene in which a furious Al Capone beats one of his associates' head into a bloody pulp with a bat, right in front of all the guests at the grand dinner table. Robert De Niro gained weight for his role as the crime-lord Al Capone and approaches his character with commitment, but sadly he is ineffective in the film as De Palma does not quite know what to do with him. Instead he craggily intercuts Capone's boisterous speeches and monologues with the template storyline of Kevin Costner's special unit, and the former are incongruous to the key story of 'The Untouchables'. Here it regrettably becomes apparent that the film possesses all the necessary ingredients but no blender in which to stir it – and De Palma is largely to blame for lacking the necessary skill.

Having said that, The Untouchables keeps up the appearance of an epic crime film so rigorously through seamless costumes, stinky Chicago accents, vivid chases and a swarming taste to its sets that for a long time we are led to believe that De Palma has truly done it with this film. Certainly there are many scenes that testify to this and aptly camoflauge the shortcomings, such as the suspenseful pre-battle sequence at the Canadian border in which the Western-loving Costner is up on horseback to ambush the incoming shipment. Another is the first meeting between Andy Garcia and Sean Connery, in which the latter decides to recruit Garcia's Italian character in spite of racial feuding (Connery's supposed to be Irish), and instead because he likes his mouthy, bold attitude. Finally there is the unspeakably epic climax scene that plays on operatic in length through a long, glorious slow-motion capture by a staircase, politely nodding to The Battleship Potemkin's 'Odessa Steps Sequence'.

The whole film is in fact an operatic affair with technicalities deluxe. With its mindboggling ensemble (Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Andy Garcia and Patricia Clarkson) it is easy to see how it is cuing us in to like it. To some extent it succeeds well, for it is suspenseful, but it is not well sewn-together. What good is a De Niro if you are not going to use him opposite the rest? What good is a Kevin Costner (who has never looked so ridiculously handsome in his career for that matter) if you are not going to let him emote? And lastly, what good is a large handful of fully-fledged wonderful scenes if you are not going to juxtapose them with something, instead of dishing them out every now and then to keep our interest?

7 out of 10