The Untouchables! You've heard the name. You've known the legend. In a world full of dirty cops and greedy politicians, Elliot Ness and his team of crusaders defied all odds by going against the notorious Al Capone's vast criminal empire that had every inch of Chicago within his fingers' reach. They were a team of law enforcers so pure, so straight, so...untouchable!
That is the story of this wildly fictionalized movie starring Kevin Costner as Ness and Robert De Niro as Capone. The key word here is "movie". Like many of Hollywood's adaptation of real-life stories, it has to have more action beats and pizzazz than the real thing. That's just entertainment, right? Of course, The Untouchables may have done more than taking a few liberties here and there. There was an Elliot Ness who formed a group called The Untouchables, that's true. There was a gangster Al Capone who went to jail because of tax evasion, that's true. The two did go after each other, that's true. Everything else falls under section I for Imagination. But hey, it's just a movie.
Here's the problem: David Mamet is a screenwriter/playwright who made a career out of writing deeply flawed characters with colorful dialogues. His script for this movie shows none of that. Everything in this film is so simple and neatly packaged. You have clean-cut heroes and one-track villains. Now, I understand the necessity to sometimes bend history. Making Ness an integral part of Capone's trial in the film, for example, was a nice payoff to round up Ness frustration towards the gangster (when in truth, it was the IRS all along -- Ness had never even met Capone face to face, and his team only did raids on bootleg operations). However, it feels cheap if you do it to shortcut your character development: Elliot Ness -- who in real life was single when he led The Untouchables and never had biological children in any of his three marriages -- was given a wife and two adorable kids who were constantly under Capone's wrath, just so we'd feel bad for the admirably loving family man. Because of things like this, the film is full of cartoonish caricatures. The first bad deed we see Capone do? He bombs -- who else? -- a nice old man and a well-mannered little girl. Instead of the real life Untouchables, we get a rag-tag team of made-up cliches: the elderly mentor (Sean Connery), the heroic nerd (Charles Martin Smith), and the young hotshot cop (Andy Garcia). And they all had their moments to shine, right before, well, you know. It's a little hard to take this seriously.
Brian De Palma has proven himself to be a great director, and knows how to handle his material well. Here, he practically saved the movie by crafting memorable scenes that made it popular -- such as De Niro's baseball bat scene, or Sean Connery's unusual interrogation method. Of course, let's not forget the exciting action sequences. It is said that Mamet's original script climaxed with a shootout on a stopped train. When the studio refused to cough up the dough, De Palma masterfully took the famous Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin and reworked it into a thrilling gun fight, making it even more memorable than the train shootout probably would've been.
All the weak links in the script, De Palma patched with screen direction that I can only describe as iconic. Note the many heroic shots of the group as they charge into battle. Inspiring stuff. Credit must also be given to legendary composer Ennio Morricone, whose deliberately retro soundtrack gave the time period a personality, and matches perfectly with De Palma's sweeping camera movements. Morricone is famous for his western scores, and his work here feels very apt because The Untouchables is a modern day western (as modern 1930 can be, anyway).
This film is sadly a missed opportunity. It truly had the potential to be a classic epic, something that would go down with the likes of The Godfather. Granted, the perspective of the story was from the other side of the coin; I can only imagine what a great movie a thorough exploration of Ness and Capone's rivalry would make. Why a collection of top-notch talents gathered only to deliver such a simple by-the-numbers summer action film, I'll never know.
Word is that De Palma is doing a prequel called Capone Rising next. Let's see if that would be his next Scarface, or yet another "almost" film like this one.
"The Untouchables" opens December 31, 1969 and is rated R. Crime, Drama. Directed by Brian De Palma. Written by David Mamet. Starring Andy Garcia, Charles Martin Smith, Kevin Costner, Patricia Clarkson, Robert De Niro, Sean Connery.
