Scarface (1983)

 

Scarface

“Scarface” from 1983 is supposed to be a remake of “Scarface: Shame of a Nation” from 1932. Frankly, I do not remember much of the original movie, so I went back to read the review I wrote 11 years ago. In the second paragraph I wrote that gangster movies all seem like copies of each other and that I am not very sympathetic to them in the first place. That is a position I still hold 11 years later. With back-to-back gangster movies, I am get tired of them as a genre and this one is definitely inferior to “Once upon a Time in America”.

The 1983 version of “Scarface” tells the story of the rise and fall of Tony Montana (Al Pacino), a Cuban small time crook evicted from Cuba to The States, where he soon makes contact with the local criminal world and starts to make a name for himself.

His first job is to kill a fellow Cuban refugee. Next, he and his Cuban friends has to buy some dope from another gangster. This almost goes horribly wrong as the sellers turn on them and cut up Montana’s friend with a chainsaw. The resulting bloodbath is spectacular.

Tony and his right-hand Manny (Steven Bauer) now begin to work for a local drug lord, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), whom Tony impresses, but then fall out with when he sets up a cocaine import deal with a Bolivian drug lord, Sosa (Paul Shenar), way bigger than Frank can handle. Tony wants everything Frank has, including his girlfriend, Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), and when Frank tries to get rid of him, Tony kills Frank and takes over all that was his.

We then jump 3 years ahead where Frank is a big drug lord himself. At this stage everything implodes on Tony, mainly due to his own poor choices and bad temper and the whole thing ends in a giant and very bloody shoot-out.

Tony Montana is a thoroughly unsympathetic character. At every turn he is brutal and egoistic and filled with a very macho anger and pride that may give street credit, but very few points in my book. His rise is sort of a “crime pays if you are brutal enough” fable. The American dream achieved through violence. I ended up hating the guy with a vengeance and his fall could not happen quick enough. There is supposed to be some sympathetic traits, such as his refusal to kill children and him out-smarting his opponents, but when you start at -100 points, these things all mean nothing. Maybe we are supposed to be impressed by him, but I was merely disgusted.

The world in Scarface is a bleak place. It is a place of cheap death, of dirty money and dirties cops. It is a rich people’s world where wealth means you are above the law and normal human standards. It is a world where machismo is cooler than anything. Tony Montana fits this world perfectly, so maybe the point of the movie is that a world that allow these values is a world that allow Tony Montana.

One thing I did not understand is how it could take this long for Tony Montana to implode. His character is incredibly destructive and often destroys the very things he is trying to do. He lashes out without thinking, which is rather stupid, really. These are traits he brings to the table from the beginning so to imagine he would make it to the top and continue for three years before his deroute, is just too incredible. I cannot follow the scriptwriters here. This would imply something happened at this point, but nothing is happening that did not already happen in the beginning.

“Scarface” is a famous movie. It is famous (or infamous) for its extreme level of violence, something me may shrug at today, but by 1983 standards, this is really out there. If is famous as the ultimate gangster movie and it is references in popular culture like no other gangster movie. This is supposed to be big stuff. I guess I am just not very sympathetic to gangster movies in the first place.