Scarface
In Miami in 1980, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed.
1946
24 October 1939, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
26 November 1939, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
1 August 1952, USA
5 April 1962, Long Beach, California, USA
11 January 1956, Chicago, Illinois, USA
5 November 1937, Los Angeles, California, USA
22 April 1935, Shanghai, China
March 24, 2016
De Palma directs it as a blood-drenched thug opera, a mix of the graceful and the garish with Pacino's guttural thug-in-a-suit spitting out dialogue like broken glass in a harsh Cuban accent.July 30, 2014
Characterization and plot go out the window. Arms are cut off with chain saws. By the third hour everything is out of control.February 23, 2012
Performances are all extremely effective, with Pacino leading the way.January 03, 2014
One fundamentally dishonest character choice launched a billion-dollar industry. But it hardly sours a film that became a garishly ghoulish, bleakly funny and compulsively watchable template for modern-criminal deconstructions of the American Dream.February 21, 2007
As stylized social realism gives way to wigged-out Faustian fantasy, the would-be devastating effects have an oddly slapstick effect.July 30, 2014
It is a serious, often hilarious peek under the rock where nightmares strut in $800 suits and Armageddon lies around the next twist of treason.February 09, 2006
An unashamed study of selfish, sadistic criminality, and all the better for it.April 30, 2009
Viewed today, while Scarface seems less shocking than it did during its initial theatrical run, it's no more substantive or interesting.July 30, 2014
The sharp, if expletive-ridden, dialogue in Oliver Stone's script and the vivid cinematography of John A Alonzo help make De Palma's urban shocker a modern-day classic.December 11, 2013
By ignoring its massive, toxic, nuclear-fallout shortcomings, it finds its way to the hallowed status of camp classic.December 09, 2015
Stone sticks all too closely to the dated plot structure of the original movie, and such melodramatic flourishes as Montana's incestuous attraction for his sister now seem completely ludicrous.July 29, 2014
[Brian DePalma] apparently considers ''money isn't everything'' an original and profound message.