I saw The Untouchables for the 1st time when I was 12 years old at the Noland Fashion Square Theatre (now an abandoned, crumbling structure) in Independence, Missouri. I went with my mother. I distinctly remember this cinematic experience was accompanied by the peculiar feeling I was witnessing something that would, in numerous ways, inform my life from that moment on. The themes of the picture had an indomitable pull for me (mom enjoyed the movie as well). The overt push-pull of good versus evil- evident in the editing choices (Gerald B. Greenberg, Bill Pankow) and Brian De Palma's obvious confidence in the material- this grinding tug-of-war between men trying their level best to be good against men effortlessly wreaking havoc; was formidable. A kid's path into a movie is primarily through the performers (and the sounds of the movie). The Unotuchables walloped me like a Beethoven symphony. The acting (great cast- a young Kevin Costner, an already accomplished De Niro, Sean Connery and his singular gravity, a fresh-faced Andy Garcia, and a determined Charles Martin Smith- etc.), the writing (THE writer of that era- David Mamet), the directing (a sweeping and operatic Brian De Palma), the photography (grand and precise- Stephen H. Burum) and the bombastic, intimidating, under-appreciated score (the maestro; Ennio Morricone).
All pistons seemed to be firing when they pulled this production together and I saw it clearly as a young boy. I went home after the movie and told my father I was intrigued by this Robert De Niro. Dad told me to see Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Raging Bull (1980). I did. Almost all my cinematic ambitions and loyalty can be traced back to this initial screening of The Untouchables. At that time it was the greatest movie I'd ever seen. It was like being bludgeoned with a baseball bat (like De Niro's Capone does to a disloyal henchman in the movie) in newly discovered terrains of my young mind.
The Untouchables began shooting in the summer of 1986 in Chicago and takes place in 1930 prohibition era- which is an interesting fact in and of itself. In 1986 Ronald Reagan was starting his 2nd term and beginning to empower corporate entities (for whom taxpayers would be forced to bail out in the not so distant future) while endorsing union busting (Air Traffic Control- etc.). Some credit Reagan with the “murder of the middle class.” Eliot Ness (Costner) was the chief investigator- based in the treasury department- of prohibition era thuggery. Ness recruits his “Untouchables” team with the intent of nabbing street punk turned mafia kingpin, Alphonse Capone (a wonderfully flamboyant, haplessly arrogant De Niro). Corruption was omnipresent in 1930 Chicago. A particularly reckless strain of malicious thievery, murder, terrorism and hypocrisy runs through the movie like an epidemic evading all accountability (sound familiar?). The all encompassing graft and dishonesty that hangs over the movie suggests a prelude to the transnational corporate crime syndicate that uses digital media to manipulate reality and confuse cognitive reason today- 36 plus years later. Watching the movie now- I got the impression Mamet and the movie-makers were nailing down something very prudent about duplicity, courage and malleability. And accountability. De Niro's epic, lying, grandstanding, obnoxious Capone is so hilariously close to Donald Trump it led me to wonder if Trump's seen the picture and sometimes mimics De Niro's performance (a kind of narcissism- painful to behold).
Mamet's screenplay is based on historic events- but most of the film is fiction. The raid at the Canada/US border did not happen. The courthouse and the railway station shootouts never occurred. Eliot Ness did not kill mobster Frank Nitti (Nitti died by suicide in 1943). Ness's men had very little to do with Capone's final tax evasion conviction. Capone tried to bribe Ness and his crusaders but utimately decided to avoid excessive violence fearing it would lead to greater retaliation from the government. My most recent viewing of the movie yielded a discovery by a close friend and myself- the very clever line that closes the film has a bitter irony to it if one reads about the fate of the real Eliot Ness (likely an alcoholic- in 1942 Ness was in a car accident after drinking- he died at age 54 in 1957).
None of these factual inaccuracies serve to deter the viewer from the piece. The Untouchables is a pounding, exuberant fever dream written by an extremely talented playwright and helmed by a famous director with a Hitchcockian view of anxiety and violence (see other De Palma movies). The screenplay is a relatively straightforward distillation of courage and what sparks bravery in people (Mamet's view- turns out it's simply others displaying bravery). The Untouchables is as much about the dizzying anxiety of violence as it is doin' the right thing and accessing a stout ferocity when faced with morbid unimaginative demons. Much of the impact of the movie lay in its stark contrast between the undeniable darkness of consciousness and the infinite quest for goodness, decency and love. The relationship between Ness and Jimmy Malone (Best Supporting Actor winner, Sean Connery- never better than he is in this role) underlines this point of reasoning. Connery has a bunch of great lines in a movie full of wonderful dialogue; reference the lovely scene in a Church where Malone begs the question from Ness- “What are you prepared to do? And THEN what are you prepared to do?” This terrific line of dialogue uttered more than once in the film by Malone could easily function as a personal mantra for much of humanity in the “Anthropecene Era.” Malone is the aging Irish cop Ness recruits for the team and he is the driving mechanism of the foursome. Malone's the guy who knows exactly how to get to the arenas of active corruption and attack them at their core (Ness is dumbfounded when Malone takes him to the bowels of a Chicago Post Office to bust a liquor shipment). Jimmy Malone has been navigating evil longer than Ness. He knows where it lives and what it looks like and how it sneaks around night and day. Malone introduces Ness to the unfortunate fact that the criminal element is everywhere and nowhere. Everywhere because that's what evil does- it creeps, metastasizes and attempts to dominate- nowhere because hardly anyone seems to care, notice or act in direct opposition.
The other “Untouchables” are played by Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith (both finely constructed performances). Ness' wife is played by a luminescent Patricia Clarkson. And I cannot neglect to mention Billy Drago's slimy, psychotic turn as Frank Nitti (“I said your friend died screaming like a stuck Irish pig. Now you think about that when I beat the rap.”). The railway station shoot-out scene (Chicago- Union Station) alone makes the movie a must-see. It is classic cinema/moviemaking at its best (an homage to the Odessa Steps montage in Sergei Eisenstein's silent movie, Battleship Potemkin (1925)). There's the question of how and why a peace loving man (Ness) must become a murdering force of nature to deal with murdering forces of nature. Very 2023; with our new fad of nuance and subtlety exiting all conversation and a notion of “Might is Right” floating through the American Experiment. In this movie- you root for the good guys and it feels authentic to do so. The “Untouchables” are basically what many Americans wish we were or could be. Men trying to do good. Men trying to protect sacred things. Men the world could use more of. What's the most prevalent thing you hear when complaining about America's income inequality, fear stoking, infighting and institutional corruption and collapse- “I don't know what I can do about it.” It's a valid sentiment cradling a hungry solution that gains in importance with each passing second of modern life.
Well- as Jimmy Malone said so well in the piece; “What are you prepared to do?”