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Untouchables, The
Brian De Palma's slick prohibition thriller. The excellent cast boasts Robert De Niro as the thunderingly mad Al Capone and Sean Connery as the lovably world weary cop out to get him. Also stars Kevin Costner
Another milestone marking the decline of De Palma. The Untouchables is a perfectly adequate Hollywood movie, even classy and entertaining at times, but, despite De Palma's brilliant set piece which reworks the Odessa steps sequence from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, this is disappointing stuff considering he's the director of Blow Out and Body Double. Costner is law man Eliot Ness, who assembles a team to give Al Capone & Co a good seeing-to. While the premise provides plenty of opportunities for Mamet's clever script writing to shine, a couple of disappointing performances, especially De Niro's Capone, dampen the high spirits of the film. De Palma directs like a kid who hasn't been allowed to play with his favourite toy, the movie camera. A huge hit, it seems that The Untouchables forced De Palma onto the wrong track, and, apart from Raising Cain, he now seems fearful of his earlier extravagant and politically incorrect experiments. Verdict Terrific fun, but everyone involved has done better. |
