Scarface

Back in 1983, Brian De Palma’s reboot/reimagining of the 1932 Howard Hawks/ Ben Hecht classic was seen by some critics as an affront to the talent involved, despite being dedicated to them. Others found 80’s Scarface to be a blast, namely 14 year old me, dogging school to watch this three hour epic about getting high AF on your own supply. The media was full of grim warnings about the dangerous effects that such immoral texts might have on impressionable youths, making this Al Pacino vehicle, written by Oliver Stone, absolutely essential viewing.

Forty years later, Scarface is one old movie that doesn’t need much introduction for today’s youth; while the original is a pre-code classic, the 1983 Scarface is arguably one of the most culturally influential movies of all time. With dramatic action set pieces and a complex web of betrayals and deceptions, Scarface is the closest single influence on the Grand Theft Auto video game, and spawned dozens of imitations, including a game based directly on the movie. Scarface established a familiar narrative template; ‘Hey, get down to Cousin Rico’s house down at the docks, watch out for any interference, and try not to get killed this time!” would be the cut-scene instruction, and before you know if, you’re coasting around Miami’s roads in an open topped convertible with a blazing soundtrack of 80’s classic rock and one bad-to-the-bone attitude

Universal’s Scarface contains all this in embryonic form, but it’s also a cautionary tale with a corruptive political edge beyond demonising immigrants. We know from his seasoned attitude and hand tattoo that Tony Montana is already a hardened criminal by the time he arrives in Freedomtown with little more than his balls and his word, ready to start his repatriation; he’s no ‘civilian’ like war-hero Michael Corleone, but a one-man war about to happen. Montana’s first big job ends in something of a bloody mess of flying chainsaws and an enthusiastic, vigorous street execution, but De Palma is already setting up a chain of tense, anxiety-inducing set pieces; a series of events in a glitzy nightclub taking Montana’s attention away while two goons prepare to shoot the place up, or a tense assassination attempt on a UN spokesperson who has a bomb placed under his car.The latter scene is key to Montana’s moral redemption in that he refuses to continue with the job when the target unexpectedly picks up his own wife and kids, and Tony’s failure to complete the reprehensible act (‘No f___king kids’) leads directly to him going down hard in a dynamic confrontation with encroaching forces at his tiger-enhanced mansion.

‘Can you stop saying f__k all the time?’ asks white-gold moll Michelle Pfeiffer; the fluency of the language was a big deal at the time. Stone’s script isn’t short on sharp ideas either. ‘This country was built on Russian money…’ muses Tony pertinently, channeling Harlan Crow. ‘With that kinda money you could buy the Supreme Court.’ Under the chemical cosh once again, Tony rails against his fellow diners in an upscale restaurant. ‘You need people like me so you can point your fingers and say that’s the f__king bad guy, but does that make you good?’ The gang tattoo on Montana’s hand immediately brands him as the public enemy, but his violent justifications of the notion that business is just business is the timeless embodiment of the American dream. While another reboot has been mooted for a while now, Warner Bros have a wonderful back-catalogue of gangster films that are equally ripe for a reworking. Scarface totally blew my mind then I was a kid, and still packs the punch of a grenade-launcher once Tony Montana’s vertiginous fall begins.