An Offer You Can’t Refuse #19: Scarface (dir by Brian DePalma)

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Hello to my little friend!”

Hi, little friend….

BOOM!

The 1983 film, Scarface, is a misunderstood film. As we all know, it’s the story of Tony Montana (Al Pacino), who comes to Miami from Cuba along with his friend, Manny (Steven Bauer). In return for murdering a former member of Castro’s government, Tony is given a job working for Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia). When it becomes obvious that Tony is becoming too ambitious and might become a threat to him, Frank attempts to have Tony killed. However, the assassination attempt fails, Tony murders Frank, and then Tony becomes Miami’s richest and most powerful crime lord. Soon, Tony is burying his face in a mountain of cocaine while making deals with a sleazy Bolivian drug lord named Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar). Tony also marries Frank’s mistress, Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfieffer), though it’s obvious from the start the the only person that Tony truly loves is his sister, Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). Anyway, it all eventually leads to a lot of violence and a lot of death. Even F. Murray Abraham ends up getting tossed out of a helicopter, which is unfortunate since his character was a lot of fun.

Scarface is a famous film, largely because of Oliver Stone’s quotable dialogue and the no holds barred direction of Brian DePalma. However, I think that people get so caught up on the fact that this is a classic gangster film that they miss the fact that Scarface is also an extremely dark comedy. It satirizes the excess of the 80s. Once Tony reaches the top of the underworld, he becomes a parody of the nouveau riche. He moves into a gigantic house and proceeds to decorate it in the most tasteless way possible and there’s something oddly charming about this crude, not particularly bright man getting excited over the fact that he can finally afford to buy a tiger. Towards the end of the film, there’s a scene where Tony rants while lounging in an indoor hot tub while Elvira languidly snorts cocaine and complains about the crudeness of his language and, at that moment, Scarface becomes a bit of a domestic comedy. Tony’s reached the top of his profession, just to discover that it takes more than a live-in tiger and a wardrobe of wide lapeled suits to achieve true happiness. So, he ends up sitting glumly in his office with a mountain of cocaine rising up in front of him. “The world is yours” may be Tony’s motto but it turns out that the world is extremely tacky. For all of his attempts to recreate himself as a wealthy and sophisticated man, Tony is still just a barely literate criminal with a nasty scar and a sour disposition. The only thing he’s gotten for all of his ruthless ambition is an order of ennui with a cocaine appetizer.

I’ve always found Brian DePalma to be an uneven director. He has a very distinct style and sometimes that style is perfectly suited to the story that he’s telling (i.e., Carrie) and sometimes, all of that style just seems to get in the way (i.e. The Fury). Scarface, however, is the ideal story for DePalma’s over-the-top aesthetic. DePalma’s style may be excessive but Scarface is a film about excess so it’s a perfect fit. For that matter, you could say the same thing about Oliver Stone’s screenplay. Stone has since stated that he was using almost as much cocaine as Tony Montana while he wrote the script. The end result of the combination of Stone’s script, DePalma’s hyperactive direction, Pacino’s overpowering lead performance, and Giorgio Moroder’s propulsive score is a film that feels as if every minute is fueled by cocaine. It’s not just a film that’s about drugs. It’s also a film that feels like a drug.

Scarface is a big movie. It runs nearly three hours, following Tony from his arrival in the United States to his final moments in his mansion, taking hundreds of bullets while grandly announcing that he’s still standing. (Even after all of the bad things that Tony has done — poor Manny! — it’s impossible not to admire his refusal to go down.) It’s also a difficult movie to review, largely because almost everyone’s seen it and already has an opinion. Personally, I think the film gets off to a strong start. I think the scenes of Tony ruthlessly taking control of Frank’s empire are perfectly handled and I love the scenes where Pacino and Steven Bauer just bounce dialogue off of each other. They’re like a comedy team who commits murder on the side. I also loved the “Take it to the limit” montage, which belongs in the 80s Cinema Hall of Fame. At the same time, I think the final third of the movie drags a bit and that Tony’s sudden crisis of conscience when he sees that a man that he’s supposed to murder has a family feels a bit forced. It also bothers me that Elvira just vanishes from the film. At the very least, the audience deserved more of an explanation as to where she disappeared to.

But no matter! Flaws and all, Scarface is a violent satire that holds up surprisingly well. Al Pacino’s unhinged performance as Tony Montana is rightly considered to be iconic. Pacino’s gives such a powerhouse performance that it’s easy to forget that the rest of the cast is pretty impressive as well. I particularly liked the wonderfully sleazy work of F. Murray Abraham and Paul Shenar. That said, my favorite character in the film remains Elvira, if just because her clothes were to die for and she just seemed so incredibly bored with all of the violent men in her life. She goes from being bored with Frank to being bored with Tony and how can you not admire someone who, even when surrounded by all Scarface’s excess, just refuse to care?

Scarface is an offer that you can’t refuse.

Previous Offers You Can’t (or Can) Refuse:

18 Days of Paranoia #12: Best Seller (dir by John Flynn)

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1987 film, Best Seller, tells the story of two men, both equally capable of violence but with two very different moral codes.

Dennis Meechum (Brian Dennehy) is a cop who also writes true crime. In the early 70s, he was the one of several cops who were attacked by a group of gunmen who were all wearing Richard Nixon masks. Though he was shot, Meechum survived and he even managed to stab one his assailants. 15 years later, Meechum is still haunted by the incident. Meechum is a brawler who doesn’t have much time for nonsense but he also has a strong moral code (or so he thinks).

Cleve (James Woods) talks fast and always seems like he’s a little bit nervous. He has a quick smile and a joke for almost every occasion. He’s also a professional assassin, a sociopath who is very interested in Dennis. Cleve has spent the majority of his life working for a powerful businessman named David Madlock (Paul Shenar) but he’s recently been laid off. Cleve wants revenge and he thinks that Dennis can help him get it.

Together …. THEY FIGHT CRIME!

Well, actually, they kind of do. Madlock’s done a lot of illegal stuff and Cleve and Dennis are exposing him, his crooked corporation, and all of his powerful connections. However, what Cleve really wants is for Dennis to write a best seller about his life. Cleve wants Dennis to write his story and most importantly, he wants Dennis to make him the hero. Dennis is still a cop and says that once all this is over, he’s going to have to arrest Cleve. Of course, eventually, he discovers that Cleve was the man who shot him 15 years earlier. At that point, Dennis says that he’s going to have to kill Cleve once all of this is over.

As a crime thriller, Best Seller hits all of the expected beats. As soon as we find out that Dennis is a widower and that he has a teenage daughter, we know that she’s eventually going to be taken prisoner by the bad guys. For that matter, we can also guess that there will be a few scenes where Cleve insists that Dennis is just like him. When Cleve starts telling people that Dennis is his brother, it’s a fun scene because it’s well-acted by both Woods and Dennehy but it’s not exactly surprising.

But no matter! Though the the overall plot may be predictable, there’s enough clever little twists and details that the film holds your interest. For instance, there’s an extended sequence where Dennis insists that Cleve introduce him to his family. For the next few minutes, the film stops being an action thriller and instead becomes a bit of a domestic comedy as Dennis meets Cleve’s friendly family, none of whom are aware that Cleve is a ruthless killer. The stuff with Cleve’s family doesn’t move the plot forward but your happy it’s there because 1) James Woods gives a great performance in those scenes and 2) it suggests that the film (which was written by Larry Cohen and directed by John Flynn, who was previously responsible for the brilliant Rolling Thunder) has more on its mind than just shooting people.

The main reason why Best Seller works so well is because the two leads are perfectly cast. Brian Dennehy was born to play tough cops while James Woods gives one of his best performances as the unstable but likable Cleve. I’ve actually had people get made at me for saying that James Woods is a good actor, simply because they disagree with his politics. But, when it comes to art and talent, I don’t care about anyone’s politics. (I mean, if I only watched movies starring people whose politics where approved by Film Twitter, I would end up spending the entire pandemic watching romantic comedies starring Alec Baldwin and Rosie O’Donnell and why should I suffer like that?) James Woods is a good actor and he’s great in Best Seller.

Other Entries In The 18 Days Of Paranoia:

A Movie A Day #349: The Bedroom Window (1987, directed by Curtis Hanson)

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

The Bedroom Window opens with quite a quandary. Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) has just witnessed a woman named Denise (Elizabeth McGovern) being attacked by a serial rapist/killer named Carl (Brad Greenquist). The problem is that the window that Sylvia’s standing at is located in the bedroom of Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg). Sylvia is having an extramarital affair with Terry and she knows that there’s no way to tell the police what she saw without also exposing the affair. Terry decides that he’ll go to the police and tell them what Sylvia witnessed but he will claim to have seen it himself.

Terry does well enough with the police that Carl gets arrested but, at Carl’s trial, Terry’s testimony falls apart when he is revealed to be so near-sighted that there was no way he could have seen what happened from his bedroom window. Carl is not only acquitted but has now figured out that Sylvia was the one who witnessed him attacking Denise. When the killings start up again, Terry becomes the number one suspect.

An underrated and overlooked thriller, The Bedroom Window was directed by the late and missed Curtis Hanson. It’s not a perfect film. Terry does an excessive amount of stupid things over the course of the movie. But Hanson did a good job creating suspense and he got good performances from his entire cast. Steve Guttenberg may seem like a strange choice to play the lead in a Hitchcockian thriller but he actually gives a credible performance and the fact that he is not a traditional hero creates some suspense. Brad Greenquist is chilling as the killer and keep an eye out for the great Wallace Shawn in the role of Carl’s weaselly attorney.