The Untouchables (1987)

By 1987, Brian De Palma was already one of American cinema's most distinctive stylists, a director whose name had become shorthand for a certain kind of audacious, visually heightened thriller. His earlier work for Paramount had produced some of the decade's most talked-about pictures, including the blood-soaked horror of Carrie (1976) and the lurid, overheated crime epic Scarface (1983). With The Untouchables, he turned to Prohibition-era Chicago and the real-life cat-and-mouse between federal agent Eliot Ness and crime boss Al Capone, a story that had already been well-worn by television, journalism, and popular mythology long before the film reached cinemas. The screenplay, written by David Mamet, gave De Palma something he could shape into a grand, almost mythological piece of American crime folklore rather than a straight historical account.

Produced by Paramount Pictures and Linson Entertainment, the film runs to 119 minutes and carries the unmistakable look of a big-studio period production, the kind that puts considerable money on screen through costumes, sets, and practical detail. Ennio Morricone composed the score, a pairing that, on paper at least, seemed almost too good to be true. The story follows Ness as he assembles a small, hand-picked team to bring Capone down by unconventional means, the group earning their nickname through a refusal to be bought off or intimidated. It sits comfortably alongside other crime pictures of the period, though it is a rather different beast from grittier entries in the genre (if you want a sense of how varied crime cinema can be, the contrast with something like Little Caesar (1931) is instructive).

The cast is, on paper, formidable. Kevin Costner, then riding a wave of commercial goodwill that would carry him through to the early nineties (he turns up again in very different circumstances in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)), takes the lead as Ness. Sean Connery plays Jim Malone, the seasoned beat cop who becomes Ness's mentor, a role that won Connery an Academy Award. Robert De Niro, under layers of prosthetic make-up and padding, plays Capone. Charles Martin Smith and Andy Garcia round out the core team, bringing different textures to what is otherwise a fairly archetypal ensemble of the straight arrow, the wise old hand, and the quick-draw newcomer.

The Untouchables (1987) is a handsomely mounted, old-school gangster picture that wears its classic Hollywood influences proudly, part western, part noir, all swagger. Brian De Palma directs with operatic flair, crafting set pieces that still thrill: the Odessa Steps-inspired Union Station shootout remains one of cinema's great suspense sequences, all slow-motion tension and ticking clocks. The period detail is impeccable,.Chicago feels authentically grimy, smoky, and steeped in whiskey-soaked corruption, with costumes, cars, and Tommy guns that transport you straight to 1930. Robert De Niro's Capone is the film's crown jewel: barely 10 minutes of screen time, yet utterly magnetic. Munching a grape, monologuing about baseball bats in hotel lobbies, he exudes menace with chilling casualness. Elsewhere, the acting wavers: Costner's Eliot Ness is earnest but stiff, a Boy Scout in a world of wolves, and even though it was lauded I thought Sean Connery wasn't great and some of the dialogue leans into melodrama. Ennio Morricone's soaring, brass-heavy score elevates every scene, and De Palma's craftsmanship never falters. It's not The Godfather, it's too slick, too mythic, too Hollywood for that, but it's a highly satisfying piece of genre filmmaking. Polished, propulsive, and occasionally brilliant, but held back by uneven performances and a tendency toward grandiosity. A very good movie that flirts with greatness without quite sealing the deal.

What stays with me, coming back to it now, is that tension between craft and calculation. De Palma clearly knows exactly what he is doing at every moment, and there is genuine pleasure in watching a director work with that level of confidence and control. But for me, a film this polished can sometimes feel like it is keeping you at arm's length, more interested in its own elegance than in letting you fully inside the story. The De Niro scenes are the exception: those few minutes crackle with something genuinely unpredictable. The rest of the film I enjoy enormously, but I am never quite unsettled by it. And maybe that is fine. Not every great-looking gangster picture needs to leave a mark, sometimes it just needs to put you in your seat and give you a good time. This one does that, and then some. It just stops short of the extra step that would have made it something you cannot shake.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1987  | Watched: 2026-03-14

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Brian De Palma: Carrie (1976) · Scarface (1983) · Carlito's Way (1993)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)
More history: Apocalypto (2006) · Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury (2013) · Harakiri (1962) · Night and Fog (1956)