Untouchables
Year: 1987
Grade: B+
Country: USA
Director: DePalma
Reviewa great, but flawed film. morricone’s score is occasionally too sappy, as is depalma’s direction, but when they go to their bread and butter – suspense – the result is greatness. there are a couple of scenes towards the end (the train station and rooftop scenes) that are especially great.
at first glimpse the title might be assumed to refer to capone’s crew, but the untouchables in the film are actually the small team of cops that eliot ness puts together. in this way, and others, depalma flips the script of the gangster film. he casts the cops as the underdogs (and sympathetic protagonists). the first shot is of capone getting a shave with a gaggle of reporters around him asking him questions, with one of them even referring to him as the de facto mayor of chicago. indeed, the prohibition era was an odd one. capone was king and the nesses of the world could be seen as supporting a law that didn’t have much public support at the time (the film takes place in 1930, just 3 years before the 21st amendment). connery’s performance is a stand out.