Film Review: THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987, Brian de Palma)

Stars: 4 of 5.

Running Time: 119 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith (AMERICAN GRAFFITI, STARMAN), Andy Garcia (THE GODFATHER PART III, BLACK RAIN), Billy Drago (TREMORS 4, DELTA FORCE 2), Patricia Clarkson (THE GREEN MILE, THE WOODS), Jack Kehoe (SERPICO, MIDNIGHT RUN), Don Harvey (CREEPSHOW 2, DIE HARD 2). Screenplay by David Mamet, music by Ennio Morricone, cinematography by Stephen H. Burum (CARLITO'S WAY, RAISING CAIN, ARTHUR 2: ON THE ROCKS).

Tagline: "AL CAPONE. He ruled Chicago with absolute power. No one could touch him. No one could stop him. - Until Eliot Ness and a small force of men swore they'd bring him down."

Best one-liner: "Isn't that just like a wop? Brings a knife to a gun fight." (said in Sean Connery's Scottish brogue)

THE UNTOUCHABLES is a pretty solid flick. I saw it when I was rather young, and I remember it making quite an impression. Part buddy cop movie, part mobster epic, part Peckinpah-style shoot-'em-'up, part courtroom drama, part police procedural, part Sergei Eisenstein meets John Woo– it pretty much had it all. Initially I saw it because INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE had recently come out and it had launched a Sean Connery kick for me that never really did end, now that I think about it. I believe it may have been my first exposure to Brian de Palma and David Mamet, too. In the years hence, I know that Mamet has written works with greater depth and resonance than this, and I know that De Palma has made movies that are artsier and even more ludicrous, but it's nice to return to THE UNTOUCHABLES, like an old friend– an old friend with a reverb-heavy, kickass 80's Morricone soundtrack who luvs slo-mo squib action and disguising split-screen shots as ridiculous deep-focus shots.

Anyway, others, such as J.D. at Radiator Heaven, John Kenneth Muir, and Mr. Peel's Sardine Liqueur have pretty much said what needs to be said about the film in the realms of historical context, profundity, and classiness, so I suppose that instead of covering ground that's already been covered, I'll do what I am wont to do: leap headlong into the absurdity and minutiae of THE UNTOUCHABLES!

As such, I'll divide my observations into two parts: Drago-related, and non-Drago-related. The non-Drago-related section is gonna be pretty small, actually.

Non-Drago-Related Observations:

#1. Don Harvey.

Hey, look, guys– it's Don Harvey, handing Kevin Costner an axe! You remember Don Harvey, don't you? From DIE HARD 2 and CREEPSHOW 2? I've described him as proto-Peter Weller meets proto-Kevin Bacon, and hey– I like the guy. Nice to see you, Don.

#2. TENEBRE homage.

Oh, De Palma, I love ya. During a notable scene when Sean Connery is being stalked at his home, the camera shifts forward and backward, tracking across the exterior architecture, catching voyeuristic glimpses of Connery, and ending with a first-person P.O.V. of hands breaking into a window, just like the legendary crane shot in TENEBRE (which has nearly the exact same visuals, and ends with black-gloved hands wielding bolt-cutters to gain entrance to a window). Sure, it doesn't matter much in the long run, but it makes me kinda tingly when Argento gets a well-deserved salute. Unless said salute is being delivered by Diablo Cody. Or to Diablo Cody. Eh. Anyway, TENEBRE is notably referenced in RAISING CAIN, too.

#3. Connery's booze stash.

Throughout the film, my girlfriend was remarking that "there's no way Connery is sober during this," and I, not having seen the film in a dozen years or so, was saying "he's fighting alcohol bootleggers, let 'im total his tea." Anyway, during the sequence referenced in #2, Connery pulls a bottle o' contraband hooch out of his oven and has a snort. Also of note: Connery is apparently playing an Irish American with a Scottish accent, just as he played a Spaniard with a Scottish accent, and in the future would go on to play a Russian with a Scottish accent. A versatile fellow, he.


Drago-Related Observations:


Who is that terrifying, cheek-boney, crazy-eyed, thin white duke lurking in the shadows, there? Wait a minute, wait a minute... a sense memory is kicking in... could it be...

Holy shit, now the wheels are turning, ladies and gentlemen! "Smooth Criminal" was on BAD, released in late August 1987. THE UNTOUCHABLES was early June 1987. Could it be? Could the inspiration for "Smooth Criminal" be none other than ....BILLY DRAGO???


"As he came into the window, it was the sound of a crescendo"

"He left the bloodstains on the carpet"

"You've been hit by, you've been hit by, a smooth criminal"

And then, it turns out that Drago later appeared, in 2001, in a Michael Jackson video called "You Rock My World!" Is it possible that all of Jackson's surgeries involved wanting to be more like Billy Drago? Is MOONWALKER indirectly the result of Billy Drago's acting brilliance? Who is Annie? And more importantly, is she okay? So many unanswered questions.

But I believe I may have put the cart before the horse. Let me back up for a moment. Billy Drago, long beloved by this site, plays "Frank Nitti," the white-suit-clad doer of Al Capone's dirty-work. He blows up children, he skulks in the dark, he kills beloved characters, he makes thinly veiled threats and dons a devilish grin.


And he does it with style. That's Drago for ya. The man is one of a kind. Make no mistake about that. I may have alluded to other celebrities with "thin white duke," or "smooth criminal," or, hell, once I even called him "Scary Dean Stanton," but my point is this: you believe Drago, every step of the way. Here is an actor who connects with the material, brings it alive, even when he's bringing alive an attempted Chuck Norris makeout session. And by the time THE UNTOUCHABLES is over: you will believe a Drago can fly– (which again, returning to DELTA FORCE 2, appears to be a recurring career theme!)

...Amen.


-Sean Gill

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Junta Juleil's Top 100: #50-46

50. DUCK, YOU SUCKER (1971, Sergio Leone)

One of Leone's finest achievements, and one which only grows in impact with each subsequent viewing. Beginning with the depiction of a man pissing on an anthill and ending with the mournful cry "What about me?," DUCK, YOU SUCKER is sort of the ultimate statement on revolution– its winners, its losers, its agitators, its perpetuators, and the seemingly endless supply of moneyed, oppressive motherfuckers who always manage to reappear after a revolution, like the regenerative heads of the Hydra. Leone pulls no punches here: even though it's peppered with action and humor, it's brutal, passionate, and operatic. It's James Coburn's Sean and Rod Steiger's Juan, two sides of the same coin, who criss-cross paths with one another– one in decline, and one unknowingly on the rise. So many emotions are captured to the point of perfection: the exhilaration of bank-robbing or riding out in open country, the disgust at watching blue-bloods stuffing their anus-mouths, the sting of betrayal and the deeper sting of the betrayed, the unequivocal horror of mass graves. Leone is writing his history of the Twentieth Century, the Era of Extermination, the epoch of man perfecting his ability to stamp himself out. Orwell saw the future as a boot stomping on a human face forever– Leone sees men pissing on ants, pissing on each other, clawing at one another in a bloodied trench of corpses as our overlords above prepare to administer the coup de grace, just as perhaps the overlords' overlords prepare to administer their own. It's monstrous, it's soaring, it's Goya, it's John Ford, it's Mozart, it's Pagliacci. Ennio Morricone is in top form, and he creates a score full of perhaps a dozen individualized themes, any of which could carry a movie on their own. Coburn and Steiger are grand, Antoine Saint-John is frightening, Romolo Valli exudes the proper complexity. It speaks to the sheer quality of Leone's body of work that even this is still his third-best film. (Side note: it's unclear if Leone thought that "Duck, you sucker" was a common English expression, or if he believed he'd be creating a new catchphrase with it, but either way, you've got to love those Italians.)

49. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980, Irvin Kershner)

My favorite film in the STAR WARS trilogy, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK saw Lucas kept in check via formidable craftsman-ly direction by Irvin Kershner, and an occasionally tragic, occasionally quotable, often mystical, and always two-fisted screenplay by old-Hollywood worshipper Lawrence Kasdan (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, SILVERADO, BODY HEAT) and old-Hollywood player Leigh Brackett (RIO BRAVO, THE BIG SLEEP, THE LONG GOODBYE). Even chubby, post-fugue state, CGI-humpin' George Lucas couldn't find too much to mess with in the various iterations of EMPIRE we've seen since 1997. I don't know what to say that hasn't been said ad nauseum by STAR WARS acolytes already, but we've got Frank Oz taking the art of filmic puppetry to new and astounding heights, Boba Fett exuding Western-baddie cool without actually doing anything, Harrison Ford in his first appearance as a capital-A Actor, Carrie Fisher fueled by mountains of cocaine, towering and frightening stop-motion vehicles, elegant matte paintings, loads of C-3PO/Lando Calrissian homoeroticism, a hand-puppet that eats spaceships, an exhilaratingly complex John Williams score, more strangulation per capita than any comparable PG-rated space opera (even Chewie gets in on the action), abominable snowmen, Cliff Clavin, and a really awkward breakfast with Darth Vader. It's better than HOWARD THE DUCK is what I'm saying.

48. BRAZIL (1985, Terry Gilliam)

An eye-popping dystopian cauldron of Kafka and Orwell brazenly stirred by visual mastermind Terry Gilliam, BRAZIL (originally conceived as "1984 AND 1/2") piles on the grandeur, cheekiness, and dread that one would expect from such an endeavor. It's filled with genius performances and memorable moments– Jim Broadbent freakishly contorting the rubbery face of socialite Katherine Helmond; the breathtaking clashes between Icarus-armor clad Jonathan Pryce and a gargantuan samurai; mustachioed Robert De Niro bursting forth from here, there, and everywhere, a postmodern anti-bureaucratic Robin Hood; Ian Richardson leading a phalanx of pencil-pushers, striding purposefully through an office which bears more resemblance to a parking garage; Michael Palin leading awkward, flustering torture sessions while donning a grotesque baby mask; the paralyzing paramilitary-style assaults on average Joes by the minions of the Ministry of Information– it's nearly two-and-a-half hours of nonstop hilarity, wonderment, and torment, and I'm fairly certain that Kafka (who was rumored to chuckle his way through readings of his manuscripts) would be proud.

47. DOCKS OF NEW YORK (1928, Josef von Sternberg)

Probably my favorite silent film of all time, DOCKS OF NEW YORK is a mist-enshrouded and shadow-entrenched look at life and love between grime-coated, seafaring brutes and suicidal, proto-Dietrich barflies. The entire first half of the film takes place in near-darkness– unforgiving furnace rooms, tenebrous alleways, murky canals, and a rough n' tumble tavern full of cheap drinks, cheaper drunks, and a rogue's gallery of other salty characters. But then the plot develops and this endless night ends– daylight hits, and it's stark and painful and shocking because we've adjusted ourselves to the darkness; it's the same effect as waking after too little sleep on the morning after a night of debauchery, and it's astonishing to really feel that intruding dawn in the context of watching a film. DOCKS OF NEW YORK is a treatise on impulse, the worth of human beings, and what it's like to spend a lifetime scraping the bottom of the (sardine?) barrel while catching only fleeting glimpses of happiness from between the wooden slats. Also see: THE SCARLET EMPRESS, MOROCCO, BLONDE VENUS, THE LAST COMMAND, et al. Sternberg's one of the greats, and I'd recommend any of his films that I've seen without reservation.

46. SUNSET BLVD. (1950, Billy Wilder)
What to say? That the funeral for an ape sequence is more subtly terrifying than any horror flick released in the last fifteen years? That Gloria Swanson is the scariest woman not named Joan Crawford to ever draw breath? That Erich von Stroheim is so damned classy they should give him an extra "von" or two? I mean, just look at this stuff:






If you haven't already, I mean... Just go see the damn thing.

Coming up next... Even more Eigeman, sandwich-making with Crispin Glover, and more Argento!

-Sean Gill

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