DVD Review: Scarface (Platinum Edition)

By Adnan Tezer Oct 12, 2006, 13:06 GMT

In Scarface, Al Pacino gives an unforgettably powerful performance as Tony Montana, one of the most ruthless gangsters ever depicted on film. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, and produced by Martin Bregman who brought the Godfather legends to the screen, Scarface follows the violent career of Tony Montana (Pacino), a ruthless Cuban refugee who blasts his way to the top of Miami’s drug underworld, ...more

Few films have the raw lasting power and iconic status of Brian DePalma’s Scarface. Directed by DePalma from a script written by Oliver Stone and starring Al Pacino in one of the most flamboyant, influential and lasting roles in American cinema as Tony Montana, Scarface is a modern retelling of the 1932 pre- Hays code classic Scarface directed by Howard Hawks, produced by Howard Hughes and starring Paul Muni as the title character. Both versions were highly controversial for their brutal on-screen violence, both chronicle the rise and fall of a gangster and they both make veiled reference to his slightly incestuous obsession with his sister. 

DePalma’s Scarface, although critically reviled upon its release in December 1983, has become a cult film to rival just about any other - with the exception of Blade Runner.  Its mark can be seen in the African-American and Hispanic hip-hop and rap industries; just about every college dormitory has a poster of it; and it has arguably the most quotable dialogue in all of film. There is also a Scarface industry that contains shirts, video games, action figures, cell phone ringtones, etc. It has been imitated countless times in film, reset the standard for on-screen violence and profanity, and has spawned four DVD versions. The latest DVD version of the film is the new Platinum Edition - which is essentially the EXACT SAME version as the 2003 20-year Anniversary Edition save for a substantial audio improvement and the addition/subtraction of an extra.  

While technically a remake, Scarface will most often remind you of The Godfather, another American gangster classic that presents you with a flawed, evil man yet gives him some humanistic qualities. This is ironic considering that Al Pacino would play both Michael Corleone and Tony Montana. The extreme difference being that Michael starts off as a pure and untainted man who gradually becomes evil, and Tony Montana is and stays throughout the film a violent thug who is undone by his own demons and insatiable ambitions.

The film opens with a scrawl stating that Fidel Castro has allowed his citizens, if they wish, to flee Cuba and come to the United States, specifically Miami, Florida, in May 1980. Along with the tired and weary masses, Castro unloads the dregs of his Cuban jails as a big F.U. to the States. These dregs are epitomized by one Antonio “Tony” Montana (Pacino). Right from the film’s opening scene where he is interrogated by U.S. Federal Agents, you realize that the man is a low-life, street-level assassin even though he claims to be a “political prisoner from Cuba.”  He desires the same things all of us do, which in the end, despite his extreme unlikeability and violent nature, makes you root for the bad guy.

He wants the American Dream: fast cars, nice suits, money and beautiful women. In his own words, he wants “the world Chico and everything in it.”  He understands the way this country works in accumulating wealth as he points out to his partner Manny “In 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 woman.” For a brief moment in time, the world is indeed his.  Cocaine and his own demons eventually take him down and everyone that has the misfortune of being around him.

Montana and his best and only friend Manolo “Manny,” played by Steven Bauer, are sent to an internment camp along with hundreds of other Cuban refugees. While in the camp, Tony agrees to “carve him up real nice” a recently arrived Cuban political figure banished by Castro. The hit is a favor for an aging, mid-level cocaine baron Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) in exchange for green cards for him, Manny and their small crew.  While outside in Miami, Tony and Manny toil as dishwashers at a local food stand in front of a flashy nightclub. Tony watches the well-dressed men and beautiful women walking in and out and fiercely believes that he can and should be one of those well-dressed men because what do they have that he doesn’t have?  Looking to make a quick score rather than break his back as a dishwasher, Tony and his crew reluctantly agree to do a small-time cocaine deal for Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham) who is Frank Lopez’s right-hand man. The deal goes violently, horrifically bad, but Tony proves himself on the job so to speak. He also impresses Frank so much that he asks for Tony and Manny to come work for him in the drug trade.

However the moment Tony catches a glimpse of Frank’s exotic, blonde, leggy cokehead girlfriend Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), he has to have her. In no time at all, he has her and has control of Frank’s business. Ignoring Frank’s advice of keeping a low profile, Tony begins a business relationship with Bolivian drug baron Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar). Sosa admires Tony’s blunt truth and guts but warns him “don’t you ever try and fuck me.”  Tony suddenly has a thriving cocaine “llelo” business, a mansion, a hot wife, a Porsche, an investment banker who gladly washes his money for a price and a real tiger in his back yard.

He also has a growing addiction to cocaine; is becoming extremely paranoid and erratic; and cannot stand to have another man put his hands on his beautiful and innocent little sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). The film alludes to his incestuous obsession with her but wisely never veers too far in that direction.  With all of his reprehensible traits, Tony does believe in a code of honor, and takes pride in the fact that he never betrayed anyone that didn’t have it coming. Ironically, it would be this last remaining piece of humanity “Ju think I kill two kids and a woman?” that sets his inevitable fate in motion.  

The film runs at an epic pace, nearly three hours, and the last 45 –50 minutes deals with the extremely unpleasant, tragic and violent, almost Shakespearean downfall of Tony. It  culminates in a frenetic, orgasmic, majestic shootout that owes more than a touch of gratitude to Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch.

While comparable to The Godfather, Scarface is by no means as regal. It is over-the-top in terms of dialogue, drug usage, profanity, violence, fashion/style (think 80s outfits and hairdos), EVERYTHING. It is also the essential 80s movie that epitomized the win-at-all costs mentality and excess that permeated the Reagan decade.  Indeed one of the film’s many timeless lines is “Nothing exceeds like excess.”  That is the movie, excessive in every fashion. But therein lies its greatness - which is typified by Al Pacino’s performance as Montana.

In the end, the film succeeds because of his towering, larger-than-life, scenery chewing turn. His Cuban accent is laughable as are most of the other NON-HISPANIC actors cast as Cubans - Bauer was the only native Cuban cast. Montana is unredeemable and unlikeable and never really changes in the film. Pacino’s bad accent, ironically becomes one of the sheer joys of the film. The words “ju”,  “meng”, and of course “fuck” will seem like beautiful, soothing poetry after you’ve seen it a few times. 

Many, in fact, considered this to be the low point in Pacino’s career saying that the role was too flamboyant.  It’s hard to imagine now but this was one of the films that nearly ended Pacino’s career. His other films of the early 80s including Cruising, Author/Author, and Revolution were considered like Scarface to be failures. After the disaster of Revolution in 1985, Pacino didn’t do another film until his “comeback” film Sea of Love in 1989.  

If you judge Scarface too seriously then you’re missing the point.  If you disassociate the reality (or lack thereof) you can see why this character, figuratively, has become one of the most enduring, even inspirational cinematic figures for inner-city minorities worldwide. Montana represents the American Dream at its capitalistic best and worst. He comes from the gutter of a foreign country with dreams of hitting it big. His opportunities are severely limited. By working hard at what he knows best, in this case being a criminal, he is able to reach his dreams albeit briefly. 

However, once he has reached his ultimate goal, he is seldom seen enjoying it. The man has no soul left, maybe he never did. His drive and relentless ambition suits him well in the first half as he wipes out the opposition and establishes himself. The problem is once he’s a gotten where he wants, he’s also become a drug addict and as any addict will tell you, moderation is a foreign solar system. It’s somewhat frightening to think that this character is so revered and loved in a literal sense; you’d think that the last hour of the film would convince people that it’s not worth it.  He is charismatic and bombastic but to think that young inner city youths look to Tony Montana as a role model is enough to make you sick. It’s understandable when Oliver Stone says that he’s disgusted and disappointed when someone tells him that they’ve modeled themselves after Tony Montana or even Gordon Gekko, from Oliver Stone’s other 80s morality/greed infused film Wall Street. These are meant to be cautionary tales not role models.

This film is an example of how diverse an actor Pacino could be. You look at his earlier films like Panic in Needlepark (where he also plays a drug-addict albeit on a much smaller scale) Scarecrow, Serpico or even the first two Godfathers and you see him different in each role. He can play it small and intense or he can take it to an operatic, out-of-control level as he does here. It’s no coincidence that Pacino maintains that Montana was his favorite of all the characters he played.

It’s impossible to take your eyes off of him. Whether shouting, cursing, blasting or snorting through mountains of coke, you can see the fun the man is having creating this character. IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE OVER-THE-TOP. HE’S ON COCAINE FOR NEARLY THE ENTIRE FILM. That’s not a drug that lends itself or its users towards subtlety.
The rest of the cast, mostly unknowns at the time, perfectly complement Pacino. Bauer is the one likeable person that anyone can relate to and his cool and collected ladies man Manny perfectly contrasts with Tony’s manic, standoffish tendencies.  This would be Michelle Pfeiffer’s breakout role as Elvira, the drug-addled wife of Tony. Having only been in some T.V. and Grease 2 until this film, it’s easy to see how she was a standout here. Her Elvira is an ice-goddess that is so addicted to cocaine that she goes from bad to worse in terms of men simply because they enable her pathetic and sad lifestyle.   She more than holds her own with the men here and in some instances blows them off the screen.  Loggia, who has the worst of all the faux Cuban accents here, is lovable as an honest, well-meaning, but ultimately weak drug lord who is no match for Tony when it comes to be being ruthless and realizes too late that it’s not a good idea to double-cross him. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, in her first ever role, brings the right mix of innocence and sexuality as Gina.  Initially, she is a sweet girl working in a beauty salon. After her brother Tony reappears in her life, she is snorting cocaine and making out with thugs in the men’s room at The Babylon Club.  

You won’t put this on par with his writing in his own films like Platoon or Born on the Fourth of July, but he must be applauded for creating the now-legendary dialogue that the actors so perfectly captured and immortalized in the film. Is there any line more recognizable or more often imitated than “Say hello to my little friend?” This was also one of the first films to deal extensively with how cocaine was distributed from Latin America to the States and much of the credit goes to Stone’s research. 

Ultimately, it is Brian DePalma’s Scarface. It has many of the director’s infamous touches like slow pan shots that linger a little longer than you would expect, he does love his Hitchcock doesn’t he? And one must remember that this was his first attempt at a genre other than suspense thrillers. It was a difficult shoot for DePalma, which included several battles along the way. Chief among them was the fact that the film was not allowed to be shot in Miami. Shooting had to be changed after the Miami Tourist Board rejected the film because of concerns over the film’s violence and portrayal of Miami’s Cuban immigrants as drug dealers and gangsters. Much of it had to be shot in Los Angeles with the art and set decorators going to great lengths and expense to express the feel of Miami, which it does in spades. 

Then there was the controversy over the finished product. Due to the film’s graphic and excessive violence, record uses of the F-bomb (223 to be exact) and rampant drug use; the film was given an X rating three times by the MPAA. DePalma got the rating changed after he brought in narcotics officers that testified to the film’s authenticity and accuracy of the drug trade. The 20 board members then voted 18-2 to give the film an R rating and DePalma released his original version. The film was gutted by critics and was not much of a financial success during its initial theatrical run in December 1983.

Upon its release on video, the film eventually found its core audience in droves and now stands as one of the greatest cinematic success stories of all time.  The film still has its detractors but they are few and far between. This may not be the best Brian DePalma film, but it is his most infamous and beloved.  Giorgio Moroder’s brooding synthesized techno-pop score, which is a classic in its own right, along with the cheesy 80s music used add another layer to the film that is impossible to ignore.

The majority of the extras here are carried over from the 2003 Anniversary Edition DVD.  Returning are the three behind-the-scenes featurettes, The Rebirth, The Acting, and The Creating as well as the deleted scenes and the hilarious montage of censored clips from the TV broadcast.  The only one not carried over is the featurette “Origins of a Hip-Hop Classic” which deals with the influence the film had and still does have to this day on the hip-hop/rap industry. One of the new featurettes is actually quite a brilliant touch. It is a a Scarface Scorecard that you can activate that keeps a running score of the number of F-bombs thrown out throughout the film and number of bullets fired. There is also a new 12-minute featurette The World of Tony Montana that contains interviews with magazine editors on the film’s legacy and DEA agents on what’s real and what’s not in the film. The 12-minute Making of Scarface: The Video Game is basically an extended ad for the recently released video game. Yes, it makes you want to buy it immediately.

The only real addition here is the upgrade in sound.  When the 2003 Anniversary Edition was released, the geniuses at Universal marketing decided to release it theatrically with remastered sound but on DVD with the original sound.  The Platinum Edition has been remastered in Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio and it is a remarkable difference with each gunshot, chainsaw and musical cue having been redone and booming like never before.   

Scarface is a modern day classic in the sense that it assaults you rather than seduces you but in a highly enjoyable way. It is the prototypical film for my generation that grew up in the 80s on MTV and quick bursts of pleasure and entertainment.  It’s not, however, the greatest gangster film ever made - The Godfather and Goodfellas have that edge and unlike Scarface they seduce you before assaulting you. Much like the drug it so prominently features, Scarface is an exhilarating and adrenalized ride that always has a boost of energy waiting around the corner. Just when you think it might be lagging, you’ve got coke, you’ve got bullets and you’ve got Pacino in iconic form.  It paints a haunting portrait of greed in the 80s and how a gnawing ambition can sometimes be your own undoing. It is (if you see it for what it is) a lot of fun and frequently hilarious.

It would be nice to say this would be the last DVD dip of this film, but (given the film’s huge appeal and notoriety) Universal will no doubt bombard us in the future with Scarface: The Babylon Club Edition; the I’m Still Standing 25th Anniversary Edition; the Come On Pelican Collector’s Edition; or the Now Ju Talking to me Baby: That I Like Uncut Version.  If you have the 20th Anniversary Edition, unless you are a hardcore audio enthusiast like myself, you can save your 20 bucks.  Unless there is another version with a running commentary by DePalma, Stone, and Pacino, this is THE LAST version of this film I’m owning.

Scarface (Platinum Edition) is now available at Amazon. As of yet, this version of the DVD is not available in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.