Rating: R
Genre:
Crime
Release Date: 01/16/2001
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English/French
Sound: DD5.1/DDS
Run Time: 119 min
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
Like the TV series that shared the same title,
The Untouchables (1987) was an account of the battle between gangster
Al Capone and lawman
Eliot Ness, this time in the form of a feature film boasting big stars, a big budget, and a script from respected playwright
David Mamet.
Kevin Costner stars as
Ness, a federal agent who has come to Chicago during the Prohibition Era, when corruption in the local police department is rampant. His mission is to put crime lord
Capone (
Robert De Niro) out of business, but
Capone is so powerful and popular that
Ness is not taken seriously by the law or the press. One night, discouraged, he meets a veteran patrolman,
Jimmy Malone (
Sean Connery), and discovers that the acerbic Irishman is the one honest man he's been seeking.
Malone has soon helped
Ness recruit a gunslinger rookie,
George Stone (
Andy Garcia), and, joined by nebbish accountant
Oscar Wallace (
Charles Martin Smith), the men doggedly pursue
Capone and his illegal interests. At first a laughingstock,
Ness soon has
Capone outraged over his and
Malone's sometimes law-bending tactics, and the vain mobster strikes back in vicious style. Ultimately, it is the most unexpected and minor of crimes, tax evasion, which proves
Capone's undoing. All of the credits for
The Untouchables boasted big names, including music from
Ennio Morricone and costumes by
Giorgio Armani. Director
Brian De Palma continued his tradition of including a homage to past masters of the cinema with a taut stairway shoot-out reminiscent of a similar sequence in
Sergei Eisenstein's
Battleship Potemkin (1925).
~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
