"Say Hello to My Little Friend."
<*dv_0*> This vastly superior remake of the 1932 Howard Hawks directed movie of the same name is set predominantly in Miami, with the story centring on Tony Montana (Al Pacino); a Cuban refugee, freshly set free from Fidel Castro's communist regime in search of the American Dream. Initially impounded in a Cuban refugee camp; Montana acts on behalf of local drug baron Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) and takes part in an ill-fated cocaine deal with some Colombian 'cockroaches'. When this transaction goes fatally wrong and the Colombians murder a Montana cohort in a chainsaw/shower scene that is distinctive because of its, at times, memorable use of suggestive rather than visual and explicit violence, the anti-hero keeps the yayo (cocaine) and the money and insists on a personal audience with Lopez in order to hand it over to him.
<*dv_1*> Montana then grows huge (as does his ego and entourage) in stature and wealth through his dealings with the yayo until he takes Lopez's life and his wife, Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer). This signals Montana's descent into cocaine-fuelled self-destruction after attaining the American Dream, and realising how hollow it is. Gaining along the way inordinate amounts of wealth, a wife, power and influence:
<*dv_2*> "In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."
<*dv_3*> Montana's greed and notions of indestructibility ("I'm Tony Montana. You fuck with me, you're fucking with the best.") prove to be his downfall when he makes the fatal mistake of getting on the wrong side of the vastly more powerful and wealthier Colombian drug baron Alejandro Sosa and succumbs to a brutal death in a final scene containing an infinite amount of blood, violence, bullets and bodies.
This movie exudes class, not only because of the memorable dialogue and acting skills demonstrated by the cast (particularly Pacino in probably his greatest screen performance besides The Godfather) but also by the effective 80's synthesizer based soundtrack provided by Giorgio Moroder, which at first seems woefully inappropriate, yet the more you listen the more it becomes apparent how apt and representative it is of the period and of the superficiality of the world which surrounds Montana. This is also wonderfully complemented by the garish and colourful clothing and set design, which both contribute to the mood of the piece along with Moroder's music.
When Scarface was released in 1983 it was heavily criticised for its violence (by today's standards though it is relatively tame) and there was an enormous battle between the censors and director Brian De Palma's camp to have it shown in its original form. De Palma eventually won the battle, although when it was first shown on television the dialogue was heavily edited. This led to millions of TV viewers believing for years that Tony Montana obtained his scars from 'eating pineapple' and not by other means suggested in the full-uncut version. However violent the film is, the violence was justified to demonstrate what cocaine driven gangster life was really like at the time, with a lot of the incidents in the film being based on real life events as researched by Oliver Stone when writing the script. This movie was not without its lighter sides as well with Pacino's natural comic edge being evident on many occasions to punctuate the sometimes gloomy realism.
On reflection this anti-drugs movie does have its flaws such as it being a bit too long and at times the script does tend to drag a bit in places, however, these short fallings pale into insignificance when pitted against the towering performances of the cast and the sheer excitement gained from witnessing the meteoric rise along with the dramatic demise of Tony Montana in this archetypal gangster movie.
"Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy."
Review by Jon Henderson
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