Scarface (1983)

Description

Product Description In the spring of 1980, the port at Mariel Harbor was opened, and thousands set sail for the United States. They came in search of the American Dream. One of them found it on the sun-washed avenues of Miami…wealth, power and passion beyond his wildest dreams. He was Tony Montana. The world will remember him by another name…Scarface.Bonus Content: Scarface: The Rebirth Scarface: Acting Scarface: Creating Scarface: The TV Version Deleted Scenes Def Jam Presents: Origins of a Hip Hop Classic Cast and Filmmakers desertcart.com This sprawling epic of bloodshed and excess, Brian De Palma's update of the classic 1932 crime drama by Howard Hawks, sparked controversy over its outrageous violence when released in 1983. Scarface is a wretched, fascinating car wreck of a movie, starring Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee who rises to the top of Miami's cocaine-driven underworld, only to fall hard into his own deadly trap of addiction and inevitable assassination. Scripted by Oliver Stone and running nearly three hours, it's the kind of film that can simultaneously disgust and amaze you (critic Pauline Kael wrote "this may be the only action picture that turns into an allegory of impotence"), with vivid supporting roles for Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Robert Loggia. --Jeff Shannon Review: One of the best movies I've ever seen - Scarface is without a doubt a classic film loaded with memorable lines and gunfight scenes. Not one person I know watched this and didn't love it. The only real thing I regret is just now seeing it. As far as the story goes, Fidel Castro has sent over Cuban immigrants to the U.S., with most of these being political refugees. And two of those immigrants are Tony Montana and his partner Manny Ray. In a camp where the immigrants were being held, Tony stabs a man who was once near the top of Castro's regime, and he enjoyed doing so because of some of the things this man did to the people in Cuba. So by virtue of his doing this, Tony and Frank get green cards and jobs in Miami. Scarface represents the American dream to have it all, and he does come to have it all when he works his way up in the cocaine business.One of the best but also brutal scenes takes place when Tony and his partner are sent to make a pickup that goes wrong. Another guy that goes in with Tony gets chainsawed in the bathtub, which is brutal now but must have been much more so in its 1983 release.But eventually he works his way up, and his boss tries to off him, and this led to Tony taking over Frank(his boss), killing him and taking over the empire. From the beginning Tony viewed him as a weak man whose time was running out.He takes Franks former wife Elvira(played by Michelle Pfeiffer)and marries her.So at this point he had it all, the house, the wife, the money, everything a man could want in life. I think another point brought out in the movie is that staying on top is harder than getting there, and this is evident when Tony becomes addicted to the cocaine. It along with paranoia contributed to his gradual seperation from everyone around him, causing him to hurt those in his way. I was shocked when he shot his partner Manny Ray who had been so loyal to him, but it was also in part to his overprotectedness of his sister Gina. Once he is on top, his control begins to spiral out of control because of his distrust in anyone but himself, and his willingness to do everything in his power to keep his empire strong at all costs.His final demise is when he screws Sosa, a man he had set up a partnership with, by failing to return a favor by killing a politician who was bent on taking down Sosa and the cocaine industry that he saw as the fault of the South American government. The man makes a speech to the United Nations that he was not supposed to make and this seals Tony's fate, although the reason Tony would not kill the man was because a woman and children were with him. The final scene has Tony fighting till the very end when Sosa and his man invade Tony's mansion. It is one of the best closing scenes I have ever seen. All in all the movie has a great message that power, or the excess of it, can bring down the strongest of men. The progression of Tony from Cuban immigrant to one of Miami's most powerful drug overlords makes for a great storyline, an I also thought this was a fantastically directed film by Brian DePalma, and after watching this you are sure to remember many famous quotes from the movie, of which would only be edited by desertcart if I quoted them here. I highly recommend this movie. There is a lot of violence, though it may seem tame to some these days, and a lot of profanity, paricularly the F word. It all works in this film though in keeping a real perspective of the cocaine industry at least as it was then. Kids should NOT see this, but if you are grown this is one movie you must experience for yourself for the story and the great soundtrack to it as well. This is a great DVD to own , and definately one of my top 10 movies of all time. Review: "Nothing Exceeds Like Excess." - SCARFACE is Brian DePalma's and Al Pacino's operatic masterful retelling of Howard Hughes', Howard Hawks' and Paul Muni's definitive 1932 gangster film of the same name. First panned upon its 1983 release, like it's predecessor and namesake SCARFACE has become a part of the American cultural consciousness far beyond itself. Pacino plays Marielito Tony Montana, a small-time stickup artist in Castro's Cuba who becomes a major drug kingpin in 1980s Miami. Pacino's Montana is reminiscent both of Muni's character and of his own portrayal of Michael Corleone. In Montana, Pacino shows us the twisted inner workings of the criminal personality he presented so convincingly as THE GODFATHER. Pacino gives us an intentionally over-the-top performance, using a theatrically "theek" Cuban accent and unremitting obscenities (estimated as one every thirty eight seconds on average) as the foundation stones for Tony Montana. Much of Pacino's characterization depends on black comedy (Tony's beloved bright yellow Cadillac with the tiger stripe interior is ridiculous to the point of screaming laughter, as is his bloodthirsty earnest buffoonery---after killing two men in cold blood he casually offers his third intended victim a job: "Okay! You call me tomorrow!") Pacino's humor hits its high point when he mutters miserably, "I don't trust Mob guys," while lighting a Corona in unconscious flattery of Vito Corleone. Scarface is very intentionally the id of the more calculating Don Michael. DePalma, through scriptwriter Oliver Stone, manages to penetrate to the heart of darkness of the cocaine subculture. Surrounded by metric tons of cocaine, warehouses full of money, and all the trash it can buy, Montana values only three people in the world, his sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and his friends Angel and Manolo (Steven Bauer), one of whom he kills himself and two of whom die through his indirect machinations. When Angel dies in a gruesome chainsaw scene as brilliantly conceived and executed as Janet Leigh's shower scene in PSYCHO, a classic of directorial misdirection, Tony's humanity all but dies, and he rampages through Miami's drug underworld, butchering his rival, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), stealing Lopez's vicious, sexy llello-emaciated wife, Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), and burying himself alive in a lust of grotesque materialism. For just a moment the world is his. Pacino captures Montana's colorful rise and his robotic downfall perfectly, showing us that Tony Montana is a spiritually dead character. Although he fights to protect Gina and idolizes her throughout the film, his lifestyle of excess eventually claims her, as unable to grasp the thought of love as opposed to sheer possession, Tony kills Manolo when he discovers them together. (The two had secretly married and planned to surprise Tony). DePalma also uses the tropical motifs of Miami in a subtle way to mark Tony Montana's rise and fall. Starting out as a wisecracking second-story man addicted to Hawaiian shirts and jeans he later graduates to neon technopop polyester leisure suits in pastel colors and then finally to dark black pinstripes. The further he descends into evil the more conservative and less bright he appears. Pacino's Montana ends his depraved existence with his face buried in a mound of cocaine, and firing a grenade rifle at men come to kill him for botching an assassination---ironically, Tony is to die for not killing the children of an important politician. In the end, this flicker of compassion can't redeem him. The Special Edition second disc has some fascinating material comparing and contrasting the two SCARFACEs, and exploring much of the underpinning of this gangster classic. One of the more interesting segments is a hip-hop exploration of the film, which has become a kind of bible for 'gangsta' rappers. To see Tony Montana lauded as "a man of principle," "loyal to his friends" and a man who "has it all" is an incredible expose of the mindset of the rap contributors to the segment, since Tony Montana is none of the above, except in the most meaningless of ways. Although SCARFACE has its uneven moments and Tony's rise is far more fascinating than his inevitable fall, this movie is far better than its initial weak press reviews indicated. SCARFACE is a true classic and time-capsule piece of the Miami drug scene. Once again, Al Pacino is being, not acting onscreen, and the results are nothing short of amazing.