The Untouchables (2004, DVD)

Brian De Palma directed two of the most overrated films of the 1980's. People adore both the ultra-violence of "Scarface" and the Prohibition melodrama of "The Untouchables." The common thread between the films is the lack of subtlety - everything is played over the top. While this self-indulgence worked to a certain extent for the Pacino flick (with brilliant moments of unintentional comedy), De Palma in "The Untouchables" forces the viewer to hold sympathy with Costner's Eliot Ness, one of the most wooden and unlikeable heroes in film history.

The film opens with an Al Capone (Robert De Niro) monologue, which are separate from the rest of the movie. In fact, Capone plays a miniscule part in the movie's main plot until the court scene at the end. It is a waste of De Niro's talent, not that he is good in this part, anyway - his monologues are not exactly career-highlight clip material.

Then Ness assembles his "strike team" (I'll take Vic's team in "The Shield" any day of the week), which consists of a veteran Irish-American cop named Malone (Sean Connery), a tough young cop named Stone (Andy Garcia), and a feeble accountant (Charles Martin Smith) who finds interest in Capone's lack of tax returns. Malone insists on reforming Ness' attitude concerning the methods with which to take down Capone, delivering the best line of the movie, "You wanna know how to do it? Here's how: they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue!"

They swiftly begin to break up Capone's operations, which forces violent retaliation. The murder scenes involving two of the four members of the team are skillfully executed. Even better is the highlight of De Palma's career: an homage to the classic Odessa Steps scene of the silent film, "Battleship Potemkin." The painfully slow-developing scene in the train station has a shootout payoff worthy of the outstanding tension created in the build-up, and, of course, there's the baby carriage. It is downhill from this remarkable and bloody shootout. Ness' duel with the assassin in white is a letdown, as is the suitably weak and over-the-top musical score from usually reliable composer Ennio Morricone (some even believe that his score for this movie is superior than his scores for such films as "Cinema Paradiso" and "Once Upon a Time in the West," and those people need to get their ears examined).

The sets wonderfully re-create the Prohibition era, but what is the good of set design when the script and direction are weak. The acting also leaves much to be desired. No actor received better roles in the late 1980's than Kevin Costner - what a waste. He was good in movies like "Silverado" and "Bull Durham," but did he really deserve this role, or his later role in "JFK?" Eliot Ness is simply not someone to root for, and Capone is certainly not someone to truly hate. The two crucial roles, the hero and villain, are unsatisfactory. However, Connery shines as the veteran willing to break the law to bring about a greater end. In one scene he takes an already dead man hostage to get information out of another, who is unable to see that the guy is dead. Connery even puts a bullet in the corpse, which finally makes the other guy start talking. Garcia is also good in support, and I have always wondered why he does not get more good roles.

"The Untouchables" is a forgettable film, even if Connery is fun to watch and the train station shootout is spectacular. The film lacks a central conflict between Ness and Capone, and De Palma's "style" quickly becomes annoying. To all lovers of this movie: you can do better than this, trust me.