The Untouchables

I was under the impression that this was a Great Film. It seems a good number of people hold this ill-informed belief as well: it has an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, The Untouchables definately is not a Great Film. While there are undeniably sporadic strong features, such as impressive, artful-shot locations, the remainder is basically bad.

The Untouchables initially presents itself as a historical crime thriller, which it succeeds at in a hammy, inconsistent sort of way, but by the end De Palma allows it to descend into a poorly thought out action film, with some unforgiveably unrealistic death-scenes. This sudden change in direction is disconcerting; a tack-on in an attempt to jolt some excitement into an otherwise boring film, and it shows. There are other baffling attempts at drumming up some tension, for instance the weird first-person camerawork which was basically poorly executed.

De Palma makes it abundantly clear that Eliot Ness is a do-gooder through and through. He never waivers in upholding the law, never a flawed hero, and is contrasted heavily with the caricature that is Al Capone, played poorly by Robert de Niro. He doesn't seem to be trying; his performance is just like so many of his other Italian mob characters, albeit more poorly written. De Niro isn't the only poor actor, either.

How Sean Connery was ever Oscar-nominated for his performance as Malone, I'll never know. His accent was justifiably ranked by Empire as the worst ever in film, beating such renowed accents as Dick Van Dyke and, er, Kevin Costner in Robin Hood, who incidentally stars as Eliott Ness.

 There are few redeeming features. I've mentioned already the beautiful wide shots, particularly of the Chicago streets and there are some powerful moments, such as the 'TOUCHABLE' scene, but these fall short of papering over the gaping cracks. Poor preformances, poor direction and poor use of source material make this a flop.

2/5