Starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Richard Bradford, Billy Drago
Written By: David Mamet
Directed By: Brian De Palma
Studio: Paramount
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One of the best crime-fighting movies of all time. I only saw The Untouchables for the first time last year but I have seen the movie a bunch more after that. The film has an all-star cast, great direction from Brian De Palma and a good score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone.

The Untouchables is about federal agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) getting a group of crime fighters to take on Chicago mobster Al Capone (Robert De Niro). Elliot Ness meets a honorable patrolmen, Jimmy Malone, who teaches Ness the ropes to crime fighting and the mob and becomes his mentor. They recruit two others who aren’t fond of the mafia in Chicago either. One of them is a rookie named George Stone (Andy Garcia), who’s got an awesome shot. The other is a federal agent named Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) who’s basically an accountant. Together, they take down the chicago mob and all the corruption in the police force.

Brian De Palma reinvented this type of genre of film and made this film into something more than just a gangster film. Instead of seeing scenes in Chicago with guys in derbies and pinstripe suits, you also see the Untouchables fighting crime near Canada, riding on horses. It almost has a western feel to it. That’s probably one of my favorites scenes in the movie. By the way, The name The Untouchables means that they aren’t corrupt and they can’t be bought.

I think my favorite character in the movie belongs to Sean Connery. His lines and his delivery is great! I didn’t know the story to this or know if this movie was true or not, but I hate when films kill off the best characters in movies. Believe it or not, I like the majority of Kevin Costner films. People like to knock him for some of his lackluster roles but I think he’s a great actor and director. This is one of his better roles, playing the lead character, Eliot Ness. I also liked the characters that Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith played. Charles Martin Smith portrayed his character with a sense of innocence and humor. One scene that’s always funny to watch is when he kills a bunch of guys on the bridge during the raid, he takes a sip of liquor when no one is looking haha (Charles Martin Smith didn’t want to do it in the movie too!). It’s the little things like that make the movie awesome. One can’t forget the infamous baseball bat scene with Robert De Niro. Just seeing De Niro as the famous mobster is a real treat. You can tell Robert De Niro really took on the role and got into character for his scenes. And just think, they were gonna get Bob Hopkins to play Al Capone. I think he was signed on and then they had De Niro play him instead. The Super Mario Brother might have looked like Al Capone but I don’t think he would have had the same effect as De Niro. The film also has a great score by Ennio Morricone. I prefer his spaghetti western scores to his more contemporary scores but this one is a decent score from Morricone. One scene in the movie that’s kind of laughable is the death of Frank Nitti. Seeing him in front of an obvious blue screen, falling from the sky, really ages the movie, and it was only made in 87! But the movie doesn’t really have too many scenes that weren’t necessarily bad or mediocre.

Since this is a Collector’s Edition, there is plenty of extras to watch on the disc. There’s a few featurettes that are broken into sections. One is about the cast and the script, and features stories & interviews with director Brian De Palma, Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith and others. Many of the interviews from the cast are when they were back making the movie and not new interviews. Though I think the filmmakers interviews are recent. You certainly find out some cool things watching these extras and hear some interesting stories that happened on the set. Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford turned down the role of Eliot Ness before Costner took on the role. There’s some other extras on here worth checking out as well. Fans of the movie will want to get this Collector’s Edition DVD because it’s got some good extras, the movie looks great quality wise. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, maybe rent the film to see if you like it first before buying.

Features:
– The Script, The Cast
– Production Stories
– Reinventing the Genre
– The Classic
– Original Featurette: “The Men”
– Theatrical Trailer

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Surround CC
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Surround

Video:
Widescreen 1.85:1 Color

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: The infamous baseball bat scene, the horse-riding raid, the train station scene.
Rating: Rated-R
Running Time: 119 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: