Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
About 30 minutes into “The Untouchables,” Treasury agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is sitting in a church with Chicago cop Jim Malone (Sean Connery). The two are discussing how to take down Al Capone (Robert De Niro), who rules the streets and the liquor trade with an iron fist.
“You want to know how you get Capone?” Malone says in Connery’s unmistakable brogue. “Here’s how you get him: he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way, and that’s how you get Capone.”
And so the titanic struggle between good and evil at the heart of “The Untouchables” is laid out. There are good guys and bad guys in this version of Prohibition-era Chicago, nothing else. The only question is who can hit harder and who can survive the other side’s punches.
While some filmmakers have had success portraying the gritty reality of organized crime, in this film director Brian De Palma opts for something more grandiose. The characters and setting are all larger than life and give the historically based story an added sense of drama and energy. The production values, especially the cinematography and set design, are stellar and make it seem as if the cast and crew defied the laws of physics to film the movie on the actual streets of 1930s Chicago.
The movie opens with Ness trying to put together his team to take Capone down. In addition to Malone, Ness brings in an accountant to help convict Capone on tax evasion charges and a sharpshooter fresh from the police academy. Once the team is in place they begin to go after Capone’s operation. After some initial success, the Mob strikes back in vicious fashion and the struggle to take Capone down becomes increasingly difficult.
There are three key performances that anchor “The Untouchables” and outline the primal struggle between the law and the criminals. As Ness, Costner doesn’t have to do much but pulls off a convincing portrayal of the straight-laced federal agent. Though Ness eventually resorts to drastic and unconventional methods to get Capone, he’s always the model authority figure.
De Niro is Costner’s foil as the cocky, hotheaded Capone. Capone is a man who has no doubt of how much power he wields and doesn’t shy away from displaying that power in brutal fashion. De Palma often films De Niro from an upward angle in gaudy settings, which gives him a very imposing appearance as he dominates the scenery around him.
Costner and De Niro’s characters pale in comparison to Connery as Malone, however—in a word, Connery is awesome. Malone is tough and street smart, with a one-liner ready for any occasion, but Connery also brings a strong sense of empathy and justice to the character. Whether he’s breaking down doors or trying to comfort the team when a key character dies, Malone seems authentic. Connery’s natural presence and charm in the role are part of what later landed him an Oscar for his performance.
There are several superb sequences in “The Untouchables” that prove De Palma’s directorial (if not always dramatic) finesse. The first is a sequence that De Palma borrows from Western tradition as Ness and his crew chase after one of Capone’s liquor shipments on horseback. Another is a key moment where a character has been shot and has to relay crucial information before dying.
But the standout sequence of the film is a stakeout at a train station late in the movie. As Ness waits for one of Capone’s underlings to show up, a woman painstakingly drags her son up a set of stairs in a baby carriage. The agonizing pace of her movements is matched by the musical score, which gathers steam as the cuts come faster and the pace picks up. And then when the gangster shows up, Ness has to make a choice between the baby and his target.
Relating to the score, Ennio Morricone deserves special kudos for his work on this music of “The Untouchables.” Whether the tone is somber, triumphant or sinister, Morricone’s score perfectly accents the action on screen. While Morricone is mostly known for his work on Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, his material in “The Untouchables” ranks among his best in a long and prolific career.
“The Untouchables” is old-fashioned in some respects because there are none of the moral ambiguities modern gangster films come with. But it tells its story so well that this hardly matters. While De Palma has faded in obscurity, Connery has retired and Costner is still looking to make a come back, their collaboration represents a triumph of filmmaking at its finest. As Connery said, “Here endeth the lesson.”
Contact CU Independent Entertainment Editor Rob Ryan at Rryan@colorado.edu.
