Scarface DVD > Reviews > ' Say hello to my little friend '

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Outstanding
Soundtrack	Outstanding

Advantages:	Intense acting,exciting mucical scores,numerous high octane shoot outs and brilliant acting from Al Pacino .
Disadvantages:	None unless you count cheesy 80's pop music here and there a bad thing hehe .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

' This country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women,' Tony Montana, Scarface

It all started on the fateful year of 1974, the stunning sequel to the godfather, the godfather part II was released. Al pacino played the role of the son of syndicate boss Vito Corleaone, the unique and stunning roleplay of Al Pacino may be solely responsible for the films ' best sequel' status as second films are generally poor. Scarface would prove to be Al Pacino's best performance since and remain one of the greatest crime thrillers of all time.

Scarface(1983) was a re-make of Howard Hawk's 1932 classic original from prohibition era Chicago. Oliver Stone seemed young and determined to write the screenplay for the re-make. Scarface is not your ordinary film, the raw talent of each person involved is expressed across the screen in admirable style. With a ferociously talented duo Oliver stone and director Brian Depalma and with the help of legendary acor Al Pacino and Michelle pfeiffer Scarface would inflict emotion and astonished responses from cinema crowds across the world.

The director of the re-make was to be Brian Depalma mainly due to his soring success after Stephen king's Carrie novel was transformed into one of the greatest horror films in the genre.Depalma would soon prove to his critics that Carrie and Scarface were not just flukes by directing 'The untouchables'. Brian Depalma's style of directing and filming could not have been more of a 180 degree turn. The typical and predictable stylings of 'sisters' and 'carrie' sent Depalma's carrer skyrocketing and many believed he would run out of fuel and crashland at a high velocity, but they were inevitably mistaken.

Scarface was not an easy film to make by far spanning at a momoth lengh of 2hrs 44 mins raised a few eyebrows on Hollywood boulevard. Scarface took a grueling 2 years to make but the raw power and limitless energy of Director Depalma and overwhealming strengh of actor Al Pacino those 2hrs and 44 mins never lacked energy from start to finish and with high octane gun shoot outs and precrious predicaments incresing dramatically in danger as the film advances just sit back and enjoy the ride, ahem a very long ride hehe.

The musical score to Scarface is tensely gripping and the thumping synthesised 80's pop beats as the opening credits dart up and down the screen in bold blood like colour emerses the viewer into the depths of the film immediately. Some may find 80's pop music a tad tacky for a film so classy as this but it's not what i'd call tacky music, the opening score is simply a drum machine and distorted keyboard carrying out a sprawling and intense sound building up to a mass crescendo. At certain points along the film Tony Montana( Al Pacino) gets dramatically enraged by certain situations and an exciting, gripping and tense musical score strts building up along with the camera zooming into Pacino's eyes to emphasise the pure hatred and anger that will inevitably result in a fast paced shoot out, it's simply superb. The expressions of Al Pacino are a trifle mixed from the offset from the police interrogation at the start full of jokes and laughs, to the powerful climatic ending. I've always thought of Al Pacino being a most remarkable actor, i prefer him to De Niro just about solely because in each film i've seen Pacino in he never feels like he's acting, never, it's as if he's the character he's playing, pure genious.

If your wondering where Grand Theft auto: Vice city got many of it's ideas from look no further, the whole game is so similar to that of the film the landcape the vercetti mansion in the game is the same as Tony Montana's in scarface the red house, carpets and the main office especially. It just shows how influential Scarface was that they based a succesful console/pc game on it hehe and what a game!

Compared with the later acting roles of Al Pacino this is his best. Carlito's way made a decade later would follow a similar risque type storyline and extrodinarily powerful acting from Al Pacino, the genre seems to suit Pacino like a fine suit, certain family comedy's and political films based on congress seem to deteriate Pacino's respectable reputation allthough an actor so diversely powerful could never deteriate, as we see in the film 'Heat' infamous for it's match up between De Niro and Pacino.Scarface is divine, twisting storylines excitingly tense dialogues and intense camera angles combined with nervewracking musical scores make Scarface one of the greats.

The storyline seems both complex and simple, the hysteria is overwhealmingly powerful around this film. In the 1980's Fidel Castro leader of communist Cuba allows many of it's citizens to leave to Florida to reunite with relatives that fled during the revolution, many of these immigrants carried criminal records and it was belived that Castro deliberatly sent them to America due to problems with over-crowded prisons.Al Pacino plays the role of Tony Montana a Cuban who has grown resentful against communism and got irritated by people telling him what to do and paying him peanuts for long factory hours. He is sent to a refugee camp near Miami and is offered to be relaesed and given a 'Green card' by a deal set up by his best friend Manny Rivera which is an assasination contract to kill an inmate of the camp who was pro communist and pro castro.

Tony Montana gets stuck working in a burger bar in the seedy cuban underground of Miami and grows irritated and decides to push and push some employers into scoring a drug deal that would earn him $5,000. Tony gathers a few guys together and heads to the deal to find he's being set up by an insane Columbian maniac who negotiates his deals with a large suitcase one half for the drugs and the other half to carry his chainsaw in which he sets about gruesomly torchoring people with.What follows is a gruesome,slightly graphic chainsaw scene where the Columbian mutilates the limbs of Montano's friend. The scene is perhaps too hyped up and overated, the violence is mediocre, but the real shocker is the resentful mood Pacino never loosing his cool just focusing on driving a gun the Columbians head, the scene ends in dramatic fassion and remains a shocking piece of film making that Pacino acted out superbly.

Gradually Montana begins to establish himself as a major player in the drugs racket especially cocaine, he wins the trust of local seedy drugdealer Lopez, who eventually betrays him over his wife played by Michelle Pfeiffer, Montana starts to make big bucks gaining trust of Bolivian Druglords and owning his own club 'the babylon' (remember the maibu club in vice city well guess what the babylon looks like yep you guessed it). Dodgy deals escalate in danger, Montana's drug addiction kicks in and he becomes a sloppy figure who very slowly looses control and begins to trust no one much like Joseph Stalin. Everything leads up to the Dramatic ending which you will have to see for yourself, it remains one of the best action scenes in film history and is a killer ending to a killer film.

The dvd is well worth about a fiver on amazon, the 2 disc special edition comes packed with Deleted scenes,trailers,commentary with actors and the director and many more hours of intriguingly great features make this a worthy purchase to your dvd colllection.

The acting is superb in Scarface the raw power and talent of Pacino shines in dark places and escalates danger at every scene, each line Pacino acts out is as good as the last, the film is riddled with famous film quotes e.g. a dialogue between Montana and Manny :

Montana: 'Me, I want what's coming to me'
Manny: ' Oh well,what's comin to you'
Montana: 'The world chico, and everything in it.

The intense musical scores coupled with the zoomed cameras and intense camer angles all showing Pacino's thoughts and his expressions, the wild glare in his eyes is acted out to perfection, intense dialogues, witty quotes, shoot out after shoot out after shoot out, remarkable acting and lush scenery make an enthrawlingly tense thriller of a film, buckle up because this baby's gonna take you for a ride.