Scarface

Cast: Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Steven Bauer

Director: Brian De Palma     

170 minutes (18) 1983

Universal 4K Ultra HD  

Rating: 7/10

Review by Steven Hampton

Unlike the more respectful melodramatics in Italian family traditions for mafia characters and killers in Coppola’s Godfather movies (1972, '74), this displaced remake of Howard Hawks’ 1932 picture - that was inspired by Al Capone - transplants its gangland scenario from Chicago in the 1920s to Florida, but then also aims to maintain and transcend many of the grotesque attitudes for excessive reactions that made the original Scarface such a controversial production in Hollywood, before the Hays Code censorship.    

Al Pacino stars as flamboyant Cuban gangster Antonio ‘Tony’ Montana, arriving in the US with sidekick Manny (Cuban actor Steven Bauer) and teaming up with American mobster Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia, doing his top sleazy act), after a drug-deal with Colombians goes horribly wrong when an interrogation by chainsaw results in machine-gun retaliation for a messy ‘business’ intro. Frank presents his classy squeeze Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer), who looks bored with Frank, and so delusional ‘grease-ball’ Tony thinks that he can win her over. Eventually, Tony marries her but, inevitably, Elvira becomes a junkie.

“Every day above ground is a good day.”

Art deco buildings are cheery pastel back-drops to violence, as homicidal Tony swaggers and struts about, and rages with crazy-eyed ambition, clearly over-compensating for his modest size with abnormally maniacal intensity. After one particularly vengeful double-murder, Tony sees an advert proclaiming ‘the world is yours’ flashing across the display of a blimp and, obviously, imagines its sky-message was meant just for him. Visiting his pious yet honest mother, and little sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Tony finds himself rejected by his own family, but he is later welcomed by stereotype portrayals of crooked cops and money-laundering bankers. The brittle slickness of gangsterism here is often overlooked as Tony is actually a tragic figure whose magnificent downfall is utterly predictable in this movie’s undisputed anti-drugs scenario. He wants to be the dictator of a vast empire and to live like a king, but his wealth and power means nothing more than an empty promise. Tony also seems to believe that his intention is really to protect Gina, whose purity has a fairy-tale charm here. However, despite all his brotherly concern, he simply wants to control her, too.

The Bolivian cartel’s snake-head, Sosa (Paul Shenar), has Frank’s closest associate Omar (F. Murray Abraham) betrayed and hanged from a low-hovering helicopter. It is an iconic scene, vitally important as a metaphor for flying too high and taking a ghastly fall, that is repeated with variations in later crime thrillers. Various glamorous settings, and splendid locations (Ocean Drive, Coconut Grove, etc.), used for Scarface, partly, at least, inspired Anthony Yerkovich’s popular TV series Miami Vice (1984-9), produced by Michael Mann.

This 4K Ultra HD Gold Edition’s bonus features include:

• Scarface - 35th Anniversary Reunion: director Brian De Palma, with actors Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Steven Bauer, in conversation at the Tribeca Film Festival
• The Scarface Phenomenon featurette
• The World Of Tony Montana featurette
• Scarface: the TV version
• Deleted Scenes