A classic

I already saw this movie but since it was ages ago, I was quite eager to check it out again. Even though Brian De Palma is nowadays pretty much forgotten, I always had a weak spot for his work and, after ‘Scarface’, it must be the biggest movie he has made in the 80’s so I had some rather high expectations. Well, even though it was at the time a big box-office success for Brian de Palma and even though it did turn Kevin Costner into a movie star, to be honest, I wasn’t really impressed actually. I mean, the whole thing looked great, the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone was fine and there was a very strong cast involved (Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro). Unfortunately, even though it was written by David Mamet, the story felt rather flat. On top of that, while it did start to get pretty violent towards the end, I thought the tone was actually really light through most of the duration and a grittier approach would have worked much better. Finally, even though Kevin Costner was extremely charismatic back then, except for his classic movie star good looks, there was eventually nothing memorable about the way he played Eliot Ness. Eventually, you almost wish the movie focused instead on Al Capone as he seemed to be a much more interesting character thanks to Robert de Niro who was still at the top of his game back in those days. Anyway, to conclude, even though I thought it was slightly disappointing, it was still a decent watch though and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.


7/10