As a college student in the 90s, as I have often said, it seemed as if you were a guy who wanted to be a movie guy, you either saw Taxi Driver or the 80s version of Scarface. I saw Taxi Driver, and, indeed, it’s still one of my all-time favorites. But, for whatever reason, I never got around to Scarface. I have no idea why. I suspect I put it off since a former supervisor said it was awful, but his only reason given was excessive profanity, and I don’t recall the man being either a prude or someone who said much about his taste in movies…aside from being a huge fan of the Steve McQueen version of Papillon. Make of that what you will.
Anyway, I saw the original 1932 version last October just before I started this site, and actually liked it. How would I feel about the remake? Well, there was only one way to find out.
Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, a Cuban exile who came to Miami as part of a huge wave of immigrants who left Cuba in 1980. Tony is an ex-con, but he really wants to move to America and will do anything to do so. Once he gets that green card, he finds his way into the cocaine business, during which he sets his eye on his boss’s girlfriend Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), a woman who never over the course of the entire movie fails to show utter disdain for Tony and his boorish ways, even after the pair get married when Tony violently ascends to the top job in his organization. He violates all the rules his old boss (Robert Loggia) laid down, becomes very controlling of the big-haired sister (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) who is corrupted by his very influence, and then after making sure he inadvertently ruined her life, he dies in a famous final scene while taking as many people out with him as he can until a guy who looks like if Nicholas Cage was the Terminator shoots him with a shotgun.
That plot isn’t too far off from the original, believe it or not, at least in the broad strokes.
Now, I’d seen and heard so much about Scarface, could the movie be as good as so many people claim it is? Well, speaking honestly, I didn’t care for it much. And not because of the heavy profanity. Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay. I expect heavy profanity. No, it came down to which Al Pacino showed up. Would we get the restrained Pacino that appeared in the various Godfather films I’ve seen, the one where he seems to be really trying to build a character, or would I get the loud, bombastic one that appears when he seems to be mostly overacting? The answer, of course, was the latter. That in and of itself doesn’t mean I won’t dig the movie, but Tony Montana has few if any redeeming qualities. He’s obnoxious, odious, and lives in complete and total excess. I wanted him to go down, and I wasn’t enjoying the trip to see it happen.
That isn’t to say director Brian DePalma didn’t get anything that caught my attention. There were a few scenes of genuine tension, even a bit of comedy when Tony, after gunning his way to the top, turns to one nervous fellow and nonchalantly offer him a job as if nothing had happened. Another, when Tony decides not to blow up a car with children in it, also worked very well. But the rest? It was one guy living in excess and then dying in the same way. I prefer my protagonists to at least have something worth rooting for. Even an anti-hero who has to struggle gets more than Tony Montana does here, and I just couldn’t get into this one at all.
Grade: C
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