SCARFACE

REVIEW

SCARFACE (18). "Every day above ground is a good day," somebody remarks in Scarface, which just about paraphrases this, extremely violent, often engrossing film. Directed by Brian do Palma it's set in 1980 when Castro opened the harbour at Mariel and Cubans, both criminal and otherwise, flooded hungrily into America (and various refugee camps). One was Tony Montana, Scarface, one of the many guys "with steel in their balls," a clever, tough, resilient operator who quickly and quietly taps into the cocaine trade. The film starts off promisingly with some sharp, stylised observations of class and kind in the grossness of dried-out Florida and its resident Latin America underworld which is held. together by nerveblanching murders and totally immoral plots to gain or keep power in the kingdom of the corrupt. As Scarface Pacino (with a remarkable Cuban accent and ambience) is the boy who makes good, the one who lusts after it all. What Scarface wants he makes sure he gets - the cool automobile, the cut on the deal, then the whole deal including cool blonde, mansion in Miami and a security system to clamp it together while he coins the millions from his white mountain built in the gateway to the American Dream. Pacino turns out an extraordinary performance backed up by an excellent supporting cast. For the first couple of hours they held me rivetted. But the film is too long (2 hrs 40 mins). By the time Scarface climaxes ones natural momentum for a movie has begun to abate and the last third of this dramatic and deadly story (loosely related to the 1932 Chicago gangster film of the same name) lets the film down badly.

M.G.

Director - Brian de Palma
Producer - Martin Bregman
creenplay - Oliver Stone
Photography - John A. Alonzo
Music - Giorgio Moroder
UIP
160 minutes

Tony Montana AL PACINO
Manny Riviera STEVEN BAUER
Tony's wife MICHELLE PFEIFFER
Tony's sister MARY ELIZABETH MASTRANTONIO

Review taken out PHOTOPLAY - MOVIES & VIDEO (UK)
March, 1984
by Michelle Pfeiffer, The Face