Sofa Cinema
Scarface
(1983)
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A tense and violent update of the 1932 Howard Hughes gangster classic with the setting changed from Chicago to Miami. Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, whose intelligence, guts, and ambition help him skyrocket from dishwasher to the top of a criminal empire but whose eventual paranoia and incestuous desire for his kid sister (played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) prove his undoing. |
This scorching update of Howard Hawks's 1932 classic by director Brian De Palma relocates events to Miami and follows the rapid rise and violent fall of a Cuban refugee turned cocaine-smuggling kingpin. Al Pacino produces one of his finest scenery-chewing performances as the ruthless criminal pursuing the American dream, and he gets top support from Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife, Steven Bauer as his partner in crime and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as his sister. The accurate, if four-letter-word heavy, dialogue and sharp wit in Oliver Stone's script and the vivid cinematography of John A Alonzo help make De Palma's urban shocker a modern-day classic and one of the best movies ever made about the subject. However, some may find its excess in all areas — especially the final massacre that outdoes The Wild Bunch — more off-putting than entertaining.