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It has often been said that less is more – but thank Christ that Brian De Palma has never listened. While already notorious for delivering a string of horror flicks and psychological thrillers that gleefully erred on the side of excessive, it seemed that the director was gearing up for his most energetic film of all as he brought Scarface to cinemas in 1983. While Carrie used every cinematic trick in the book to bring Stephen King’s debut novel to garish life, subsequent films such as Dressed To Kill and Blow Up took the notion of Hickcockian thrillers to violent, salacious heights of grand guinol, Scarface took the notion of the rags to riches crime story to cover berserk new ground, as he took us from the grimy streets to some of the most ghastly interior design you’ve ever seen. Anchored by a central performance by an appropriately ferocious Al Pacino that’s since barreled into legend, De Palma’s unforgettable ode to excess has since inspired everything from rap videos to video games (where would GTA be without it?). But does it’s exuberant 80s styling still work today? It’s time to say hello his little friend.
In 1980, Cuban ex-convict Tony Montana arrives in Miami as part of the Mariel boatlift looking to make his fortune by any means necessary. Flanked by his womanising best friend Manny, this short, loud, but immensely confident immigrant soon finds himself tenaciously clutching at the lower rungs of the criminal ladder once he’s noticed by crime boss Frank Lopez. However, after establishing himself after a drug deal goes bad where chainsaws, firearms and severed limbs were broken out, Montana proves that he’s definitely the real deal. However, once firmly entrenched, it doesn’t take the sneering Cuban long to start ascending even higher and even fixes his determined stare on both Frank’s position and Elvira, his boss’ constantly coked-up trophy wife.
But while Montana continues to live his life according to a mantra that ensures that “the world is yours”, the higher he climbs the more the strain starts to show. He may gain yet more legitimacy and wealth after doing deals with concaine kingpin Alejandro Sosa, but as he races to the top of the heap, his paranoia starts to be directly comparable to the heroic amounts of Bolivian marching power he hoovers up his nasal passages. A major chink in his armour is the burning jealousy he feels whenever he sees his younger sister, Gina, out with other men, and while there’s probably some sort of disturbing Freudian explanation to this type of sibling obession, his mental state is further upheaved when he’s targeted by those who are supposed to be his partners.
And yet, so ironclad is Tony’s determination, mere bullets and beytayal aren’t enough to stop him continuing to rise like some sort of murderous helium balloon that refuses to pop. But as his personal life rapidly crumbles under the weight of his success, something has to give. After all, balls and bravado can only get you so far when powerful people want you deader than dogshit.
Where exactly do you begin when discussing a film with such a savage cultural imprint as Scarface? A good place to start is to bring up the fact that it’s one of the most visually in your face crime movies ever made. Yes, De Palma cut back on his visual bag of tricks when bringing the story of Tony Montana to the screen, leaving such gimmicks as split screen and split diopter shots out – but in their place he included a reckless sense of balls-out exuberance that packs every frame with loud shirts, bold decoration choices and some of the most overblown, frenzied drama the genre had ever seen. It’s hardly surprising that a De Palma crime epic written by Oliver Stone carries all the deranged, foaming mouthed energy and aesthetic choices of something generated by the very narcotic substance our main character is making his fortune on. Rick James did say that cocaine’s a helluva drug…
So let’s start on that tone, and much like someone who has indulged in too much China white, the film carries the arrogant, overly loud swagger of someone with absolutely no restraint whatsoever. There is no line of dialogue that can’t be underlined by being screamed, there’s no shoot out that can’t go outrageously out of control and even the various deaths witnessed throughout carry the swell of over-exaggeration. Why torture someone subtly when you can chainsaw a limb off in a bath tub, and why quietly execute someone believed to be an informant when you can hang him by the neck out of the side of a helicopter for everyone to see. Every decision made in this movie seems to be delivered with the frazzled tinge of chemically altered synapses, but helping to wrestle this egotistical monster of a tone into something that makes some sort of logic is the volcanic maelstrom of Al Pacino’s central performance.
Obviously Pacino has played morals bereft crime bosses before, as he famously portrayed the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, but while the more controlled mobster had a temperament that burned cold, Tony Montana has a rage and a determination that seems to burn hotter than the surface of the sun.
Upgrading from hideous Hawaiian shirts to suits armed with collars you could hang glide with, we chart his enthusiastic play for the American dream as a man utterly convinced of his own abilities. Relishing the Cuban accent as he wields it the way Dirty Harry points a gun, or Leatherface swings a chainsaw, virtually everything that emerges from his sneering mouth is instantly iconic. “All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don’t break ’em for no one.” is one absurdly burst of fucked-up, alpha male wisdom, with “This whole town is a pussy waiting to get fucked!” being a memorable second.
Jogging to keep up with Pacino’s legendary tirades are a stacked cast that includes Michelle Pfeiffer as his prickly love interest, Robert Loggia as his doomed mentor, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as the sister he may well lust after, and F. Murray Abraham as a slimy henchman. But while they all do well to remain in a frame with Pacino’s devestating rants and some of the most arresting set design that’s ever assaulted your eyeballs, this truly is the Pacino and De Palma show. If you care to debate that, just look at how the film ends – in a orgy of destruction that sees Tony make his last stand against swarming enemies with only a Colt M16A1 and a small mountain of cocaine for protection. As downfalls go, it’s spectacular, and it’s a perfect way for the film to make its point when skewering the notion of the American dream as a measure of success as hails of bullets tear Tony’s world (and solar plexus) into fragments.
There’s been a lot of crime epics over the years, but none if them have been able to nail the tone, temperament and temperature of a period of American history as it was actually happening. Tackling themes of out of control capitalism, immigration and the corruption of one’s dreams as it causes death and destruction all around you, Scarface stands as an opulent ode to balls-out cinema, atrocious taste and enough machismo to put a chest of hair on a new born baby.
Say goodnight to the bad guy.
Where to watch Scarface: