The Untouchables – Film Review

The Costner film-of-the-week is The Untouchables (1987), directed by Brian De Palma. That might mean something to you, and it might not, but as directors go, he’s a pretty good one. As far as I can tell this film was the linchpin in Kevin Costner’s successful movie career. He hadn’t really been much of a leading man before it was released, but after going toe-to-toe here with his co-stars – James Bond (Sean Connery) and Vito Corleone the Younger (Robert De Niro), it was clear that he had established himself enough to begin headlining his acting roles from there on out. The following year he would star in Bull Durham, and the year after that he was the leading man in Field of Dreams.

What I found most interesting about The Untouchables is its place in the larger legend surrounding Prohibition era Chicago, Al Capone, and Eliot Ness. Back in 1957, just months before his memoirs were published, Ness died in relative obscurity, never seeing how popular his stories would become as they reverberated through the next 60 years in various forms. The book that Ness wrote was finished by a co-author who added a considerable amount of fictionalized material in order to make it more intriguing and entertaining. Because Ness wasn’t around to comment on (or refute) any of it, and because the book went on to sell over a million copies, eventually spawning two separate television adaptations, comic books, detective novels, cartoons, and this Costner film, the truth of what actually happened between the federal agent and the notorious gangster has become so woven together with the legend that it’s a futile endeavor to try unravelling them completely. The result is that we have been left with a good, old fashioned, morality tale about how a small team of outsider good guys takes down a powerful crime syndicate. It’s the Seven Samurai, it’s The Magnificent Seven, it’s The A-Team, it’s Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, and Peregrin Took; it’s Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael.

In De Palma’s iteration of the tale, it’s the Federal Agent, the Nerdy Accountant, the Veteran City Cop, and the Skilled Rookie (played by a young Andy Garcia). The City Cop, Jim Malone is the anchor of the group – the standout performance, and it won Sean Connery his only, yet well deserved, Academy Award for the role. Something also has to be said about De Niro’s remarkable performance as Al Capone. He plays the character like he was born to do so, unleashing his full range of bravado in only a few scenes, and yet it’s enough to make it feel as if he’s looming in the background of the entire movie. He’s fearless, foul, and full of himself in all the best ways.

With all that said, there’s no really deep metaphor here, nothing too terribly profound after digging around in the plot for a while; other than, perhaps, the ‘team dynamic’ which I suppose is somewhat of an ancient, archetypal expression of a small group working together against great odds to bring about the greater good for society. That’s the core of the film, and it’s done the right way, and it makes the story interesting by showing us who these characters really are on the inside. It’s a solid presentation of good guys versus bad guys, cops versus robbers, Costner and crew versus Capone. Each member of the team is completely different, each one is inadequate by themselves, each one needs the others in order to overcome their own flaws and defeat their sworn enemy. It’s ironic, but also a stroke of genius, that it’s Capone who provides commentary on this during one of the film’s most memorable scenes:

“What is that which gives me joy? Baseball! A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part of a team… I get nowhere unless the team wins.”