The Untouchables (1987 film)
Encyclopedia
The Untouchables is a 1987 American crime
-drama
film directed by Brian De Palma
and written by David Mamet
. Based on the book The Untouchables
, the film stars Kevin Costner
as government agent Eliot Ness
. It also stars Robert De Niro
as gang leader Al Capone
and Sean Connery
as Irish-American officer Jimmy Malone. The film follows Ness's autobiographical account of his efforts
to bring Capone to justice during the Prohibition era
.
The Untouchables was released on June 3, 1987, and was critically acclaimed. Observers praised the film for its approach, as well as its direction. The film was also a financial success, grossing $
76 million domestically. The Untouchables was nominated for four Academy Awards
, of which Connery received one for Best Supporting Actor
.
, gang leader Al Capone
(Robert De Niro
) has nearly the whole city - including the Mayor of Chicago
- under his control and supplies low-quality liquor at high prices during the Prohibition era
. Bureau of Prohibition
agent Eliot Ness
(Kevin Costner
) is summoned to stop Capone's corruption. Ness conducts raids using a large squad of uniformed officers. After Ness's efforts fail due to corrupt policemen tipping Capone's men off, he meets incorruptible Irish
officer Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery
) and is told to pick men who have never come under Capone's influence by enlisting them from the police academy. Italian American
trainee George Stone, formerly Giuseppe Petri (Andy García
), is enlisted due to his superior marksmanship and intelligence. Joined by accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith
; character based on Frank J. Wilson
), assigned to Ness from Washington, D.C.
, he has organized a team able to stop Capone.
The team raids a post office where illegal liquor is stored, but Malone and most of the police know where the alcohol is. As the four gain notoriety, Wallace informs Ness that Capone has not filed an income tax
return in four years; therefore, they can try Capone for tax evasion
. Ness is visited by an alderman
who tries to bribe him into dropping the investigation, but he refuses to cooperate and throws him out. When Capone's chief assassin Frank Nitti
(Billy Drago
) threatens Ness' family, Ness has them moved to a safer place, then takes the team to the Canadian-U.S. border for a raid on an incoming liquor shipment. Ness chases one of the gangsters into an empty house and kills him in self-defense. Malone captures George (Brad Sullivan
), a Capone bookkeeper, and brings him back to the house for interrogation. George proves uncooperative to Ness and his other two teammates, so Malone grabs the dead man and shoots him to coerce George into cooperating, much to the dismay of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
who have assisted in the raid.
At the police station, Nitti kills Wallace and George. Ness angrily confronts Capone and his men, but Malone intervenes. Malone persuades Ness to stall the district attorney
(Clifton James
) from dropping the case, then corners police chief Mike Dorsett, who sold out Wallace and George to Capone. Malone learns about another Capone accountant, Walter Payne, and calls Ness with the news. A knife-wielding thug breaks into Malone’s home; Malone forces him out the front door with a shotgun, but Nitti uses his Thompson submachine gun
to shoot him. He lives long enough for Ness and Stone to find him, and shows them which train Payne will take out of town before he dies.
Ness and Stone arrive at Union Station
and find Payne guarded by several gangsters. After a fierce shootout (a homage to the famous Odessa Steps scene from the 1926 Russian film The Battleship Potemkin
), the two succeed in killing the gangsters and taking Payne alive. Payne testifies in court about the cash flows throughout the Capone organization. Ness, however, notices that Capone seems unperturbed despite the probability of serving a long prison sentence, and also sees Nitti carrying a gun inside his jacket. He escorts Nitti out of the courtroom with the bailiff
and discovers that Nitti has the mayor’s permission to carry the weapon. Ness identifies Nitti as Malone’s assassin after seeing Malone's address in Nitti's matchbook
.
Nitti shoots the bailiff in a panic and flees to the roof of the building, exchanging gunfire with Ness along the way. Eventually, Ness corners Nitti. However, when Nitti insults Malone and says that he will never go to prison, Ness throws him off the roof to his death. In the courthouse, Stone shows Ness a document from Nitti’s jacket that reveals that the jury was bribed, explaining Capone's relaxed mood. The judge has no intention of using it as evidence until Ness bluffs that the judge's name is in Payne’s ledger of official payoffs. To avoid being labeled as corrupt, the judge decides to switch juries with a neighboring courtroom and restart the trial. Before the trial can restart, however, Capone's lawyer withdraws the plea of "not guilty" for a plea of "guilty" without Capone's consent. Capone is later sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Packing up his Chicago office, Ness ponders the Saint Jude
pendant that Malone had carried with him for many years, and which Malone had given to him before dying. He gives the pendant to Stone, reasoning that Malone would have wanted a cop to have it. Ness turns down an offer to speak to a reporter wanting to speak to him. When the reporter mentions that Prohibition is due to be repealed and asks what Ness might do then, Ness responds, "I think I’ll have a drink."
A month after the film was released, De Palma downplayed his role on the film:
Although De Niro was De Palma's first choice to play Capone, the director met with Bob Hoskins
to discuss the role. When De Niro took the part, director De Palma mailed Hoskins a cheque for £20,000 with a "Thank You" note, which prompted Hoskins to call up De Palma and ask him if there were any more movies he didn't want him to be in.
. According to producer Art Linson, the polls conducted for the film showed that approximately 50% of the audience was women. "Ordinarily, a violent film attracts predominantly men, but this is also touching, about redemption and relationships and because of that the audience tends to forgive the excesses when it comes to violence".
The Untouchables was also a critical success. It received a mostly positive reception and has an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
. Vincent Canby
, of The New York Times
, gave the movie a glowing review, calling it "a smashing work" and saying it was "vulgar, violent, funny and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful". Roger Ebert
, on the other hand, said, "The Untouchables has great costumes, great sets, great cars, great guns, great locations and a few shots that absolutely capture the Prohibition era. But it does not have a great script, great performances or great direction". Hal Hinson, in his review for the Washington Post, criticized De Palma's direction: "And somehow we're put off here by the spectacular stuff he throws up onto the screen. De Palma's storytelling instincts have given way completely to his interest in film as a visual medium. His only real concern is his own style". Time
magazine's Richard Schickel
wrote, "Mamet's elegantly efficient script does not waste a word, and De Palma does not waste a shot. The result is a densely layered work moving with confident, compulsive energy".
Ebert singled out De Niro's scenes portraying Al Capone as the biggest disappointment of the film, while giving praise to Sean Connery's work. While he was voted first place in a Empire magazine historical poll for worst film accent, Connery was awarded the 1987 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance. Pauline Kael called it "a great audience movie—a wonderful potboiler." Time magazine ranked it as one of the best films of 1987.
. In the film, Nitti is thrown off the roof of the courthouse building by Eliot Ness into a car in the parking lot. In actuality, Nitti committed suicide in 1943 rather than face trial and imprisonment. Another notable inaccuracy is the number of Untouchables. In reality, there were eleven of them and none were killed, whereas in the film there are only four and the film ends with only two of them still alive. Finally, the depiction of Capone's fall is inaccurate. The actual trial went all the way to verdict and Capone was convicted, and sentenced to ten years in prison for income tax evasion
and an extra year for contempt of court
as a result of a completely separate investigation headed by Frank J. Wilson. However, in the film, Capone's own attorney betrays Capone by withdrawing the plea of "not guilty" and entering a plea of "guilty" clearly without Capone's consent (Capone even assaults his lawyer for this and loudly asks if such an action is true justice); such representation in U.S. courts is prohibited as unconstitutional, and would likely lead to the lawyer facing serious discipline, possibly being held in contempt or disbarment. Since a guilty plea cannot be made without the client's consent, no judge could give legal weight to the attorney's renegade plea.
The film also shows Eliot Ness as having a young daughter, but he in fact only had one child, a son Robert, whom he adopted in 1947, many years after Ness' dealings with Capone.
in 1989 on ZX Spectrum
, Amstrad CPC
, Commodore 64
, MSX
, Amiga
, MS-DOS
, and later on NES
, and SNES
. Based loosely on the movie, the game plays out some of the more significant parts of the film. Set in Chicago, the primary goal of the game is to take down Al Capone
's henchmen and eventually detain Capone.
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...
-drama
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
film directed by Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
and written by David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
. Based on the book The Untouchables
The Untouchables (1957 book)
The Untouchables is an autobiographical memoir by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, published in 1957. The book deals with the experiences of Eliot Ness, a federal agent in the Bureau of Prohibition, as he fights crime in Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s with the help of a special team of...
, the film stars Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...
as government agent Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.- Early life :...
. It also stars Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
as gang leader Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
and Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
as Irish-American officer Jimmy Malone. The film follows Ness's autobiographical account of his efforts
The Untouchables (law enforcement)
The Untouchables was a group of 13 U.S. federal law-enforcement agents, led by Eliot Ness, who, from 1929 to 1931, worked to end Al Capone's illegal activities by aggressively enforcing Prohibition and tax laws against Capone and his organization...
to bring Capone to justice during the Prohibition era
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
.
The Untouchables was released on June 3, 1987, and was critically acclaimed. Observers praised the film for its approach, as well as its direction. The film was also a financial success, grossing $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
76 million domestically. The Untouchables was nominated for four Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, of which Connery received one for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
.
Plot
In ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, gang leader Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
(Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
) has nearly the whole city - including the Mayor of Chicago
Mayor of Chicago
The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of Chicago, Illinois, the third largest city in the United States. He or she is charged with directing city departments and agencies, and with the advice and consent of the Chicago City Council, appoints department and agency leaders.-Appointment...
- under his control and supplies low-quality liquor at high prices during the Prohibition era
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
. Bureau of Prohibition
Bureau of Prohibition
The Bureau of Prohibition was the federal law enforcement agency formed to enforce the National Prohibition Act of 1919, commonly known as the Volstead Act, which backed up the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and transportation...
agent Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.- Early life :...
(Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...
) is summoned to stop Capone's corruption. Ness conducts raids using a large squad of uniformed officers. After Ness's efforts fail due to corrupt policemen tipping Capone's men off, he meets incorruptible Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
officer Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
) and is told to pick men who have never come under Capone's influence by enlisting them from the police academy. Italian American
Italian American
An Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...
trainee George Stone, formerly Giuseppe Petri (Andy García
Andy García
Andrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman...
), is enlisted due to his superior marksmanship and intelligence. Joined by accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith
Charles Martin Smith
Charles Martin Smith is an American film actor, writer, and director.-Early life:Smith was born in Van Nuys, California. His father, Frank Smith, was a film cartoonist and animator, while his uncle Paul J. Smith was an animator as well as a director for the Walter Lantz Studios...
; character based on Frank J. Wilson
Frank J. Wilson
Frank J. Wilson was the Chief of the United States Secret Service and a former agent of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue, later known as the Internal Revenue Service, most notably in the 1931 prosecution of Chicago mobster Al Capone and federal representative in the Lindbergh...
), assigned to Ness from Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, he has organized a team able to stop Capone.
The team raids a post office where illegal liquor is stored, but Malone and most of the police know where the alcohol is. As the four gain notoriety, Wallace informs Ness that Capone has not filed an income tax
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
return in four years; therefore, they can try Capone for tax evasion
Tax evasion
Tax evasion is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability,...
. Ness is visited by an alderman
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
who tries to bribe him into dropping the investigation, but he refuses to cooperate and throws him out. When Capone's chief assassin Frank Nitti
Frank Nitti
Francesco Raffaele Nitto , also known as Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, was an Italian American gangster. One of Al Capone's top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all strong-arm and 'muscle' operations...
(Billy Drago
Billy Drago
Billy Drago is an American actor known for his roles as villains in television and motion pictures.-Personal life:Drago was born William Eugene Burrows in Hugoton, Kansas to William and Gladys Burrows. He took his grandmother's maiden name as his stage name to keep from being confused with another...
) threatens Ness' family, Ness has them moved to a safer place, then takes the team to the Canadian-U.S. border for a raid on an incoming liquor shipment. Ness chases one of the gangsters into an empty house and kills him in self-defense. Malone captures George (Brad Sullivan
Brad Sullivan
Brad Sullivan was an American actor known for character roles in television and on film and stage.-Early life and career:...
), a Capone bookkeeper, and brings him back to the house for interrogation. George proves uncooperative to Ness and his other two teammates, so Malone grabs the dead man and shoots him to coerce George into cooperating, much to the dismay of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
who have assisted in the raid.
At the police station, Nitti kills Wallace and George. Ness angrily confronts Capone and his men, but Malone intervenes. Malone persuades Ness to stall the district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
(Clifton James
Clifton James
George Clifton James is an American actor. He is probably best known for his role as the bumbling Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun and his role alongside Sean Connery in The Untouchables .-Personal life:James was...
) from dropping the case, then corners police chief Mike Dorsett, who sold out Wallace and George to Capone. Malone learns about another Capone accountant, Walter Payne, and calls Ness with the news. A knife-wielding thug breaks into Malone’s home; Malone forces him out the front door with a shotgun, but Nitti uses his Thompson submachine gun
Thompson submachine gun
The Thompson is an American submachine gun, invented by John T. Thompson in 1919, that became infamous during the Prohibition era. It was a common sight in the media of the time, being used by both law enforcement officers and criminals...
to shoot him. He lives long enough for Ness and Stone to find him, and shows them which train Payne will take out of town before he dies.
Ness and Stone arrive at Union Station
Union Station (Chicago)
Union Station is a major train station that opened in 1925 in Chicago, replacing an earlier 1881 station. It is now the only intercity rail terminal in Chicago, as well as being the city's primary terminal for commuter trains. The station stands on the west side of the Chicago River between Adams...
and find Payne guarded by several gangsters. After a fierce shootout (a homage to the famous Odessa Steps scene from the 1926 Russian film The Battleship Potemkin
The Battleship Potemkin
The Battleship Potemkin , sometimes rendered as The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm...
), the two succeed in killing the gangsters and taking Payne alive. Payne testifies in court about the cash flows throughout the Capone organization. Ness, however, notices that Capone seems unperturbed despite the probability of serving a long prison sentence, and also sees Nitti carrying a gun inside his jacket. He escorts Nitti out of the courtroom with the bailiff
Bailiff
A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...
and discovers that Nitti has the mayor’s permission to carry the weapon. Ness identifies Nitti as Malone’s assassin after seeing Malone's address in Nitti's matchbook
Matchbook
A matchbook is a small paperboard folder enclosing a quantity of matches and having a coarse striking surface on the exterior...
.
Nitti shoots the bailiff in a panic and flees to the roof of the building, exchanging gunfire with Ness along the way. Eventually, Ness corners Nitti. However, when Nitti insults Malone and says that he will never go to prison, Ness throws him off the roof to his death. In the courthouse, Stone shows Ness a document from Nitti’s jacket that reveals that the jury was bribed, explaining Capone's relaxed mood. The judge has no intention of using it as evidence until Ness bluffs that the judge's name is in Payne’s ledger of official payoffs. To avoid being labeled as corrupt, the judge decides to switch juries with a neighboring courtroom and restart the trial. Before the trial can restart, however, Capone's lawyer withdraws the plea of "not guilty" for a plea of "guilty" without Capone's consent. Capone is later sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Packing up his Chicago office, Ness ponders the Saint Jude
Saint Jude
Jude was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He is generally identified with Thaddeus, and is also variously called Jude of James, Jude Thaddaeus, Judas Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus...
pendant that Malone had carried with him for many years, and which Malone had given to him before dying. He gives the pendant to Stone, reasoning that Malone would have wanted a cop to have it. Ness turns down an offer to speak to a reporter wanting to speak to him. When the reporter mentions that Prohibition is due to be repealed and asks what Ness might do then, Ness responds, "I think I’ll have a drink."
Cast
| Actor | Role | Based on |
|---|---|---|
| Kevin Costner Kevin Costner Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J... |
Eliot Ness Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.- Early life :... |
|
| Sean Connery Sean Connery Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy... |
Jim Malone | Martin J. Lahart |
| Charles Martin Smith Charles Martin Smith Charles Martin Smith is an American film actor, writer, and director.-Early life:Smith was born in Van Nuys, California. His father, Frank Smith, was a film cartoonist and animator, while his uncle Paul J. Smith was an animator as well as a director for the Walter Lantz Studios... |
Oscar Wallace | Frank J. Wilson Frank J. Wilson Frank J. Wilson was the Chief of the United States Secret Service and a former agent of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue, later known as the Internal Revenue Service, most notably in the 1931 prosecution of Chicago mobster Al Capone and federal representative in the Lindbergh... |
| Andy García Andy García Andrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman... |
George Stone (Giuseppe Petri) | Frank Basile |
| Robert De Niro Robert De Niro Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973... |
Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early... |
|
| Patricia Clarkson Patricia Clarkson Patricia Davies Clarkson is an American actress. After studying drama on the East Coast, Clarkson launched her acting career in 1985, and has worked steadily in both film and television. She twice won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in Six Feet Under... |
Catherine Ness | Evaline Ness Evaline Ness Evaline Ness was an American commercial artist and illustrator for award winning children's books.She was born Evaline Michelow in Union City, Ohio and grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. Ness studied at Ball State Teachers College... |
| Billy Drago Billy Drago Billy Drago is an American actor known for his roles as villains in television and motion pictures.-Personal life:Drago was born William Eugene Burrows in Hugoton, Kansas to William and Gladys Burrows. He took his grandmother's maiden name as his stage name to keep from being confused with another... |
Frank Nitti Frank Nitti Francesco Raffaele Nitto , also known as Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, was an Italian American gangster. One of Al Capone's top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all strong-arm and 'muscle' operations... |
Frank Nitti/Phil D'Andrea |
| Richard Bradford Richard Bradford (actor) Richard Bradford is an American actor, known for his lead role as former CIA agent turned private eye McGill in the British TV adventure series Man in a Suitcase, made by ITC in 1967.... |
Chief Mike Dorsett | |
| Jack Kehoe Jack Kehoe Jack Kehoe is an American film actor appearing in a wide variety of films, including the crime dramas Serpico, The Pope of Greenwich Village, and Brian De Palma's 1987 The Untouchables, as well as the 1976 comedy Car Wash, and 1988 cult classic Midnight Run... |
Walter Payne | |
| Brad Sullivan Brad Sullivan Brad Sullivan was an American actor known for character roles in television and on film and stage.-Early life and career:... |
George | |
| Clifton James Clifton James George Clifton James is an American actor. He is probably best known for his role as the bumbling Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun and his role alongside Sean Connery in The Untouchables .-Personal life:James was... |
District Attorney | |
Pre-production and production
De Niro wanted one extra scene written for his character, and time to finish his commitment to the Broadway production of Cuba and His Teddy Bear and to gain about 30 pounds (13.6 kg) to play Capone; according to De Palma, De Niro was "very concerned about the shape of his face for the part." The Untouchables began production in Chicago on August 18, 1986. Actual historical Chicago locations were featured in the movie.A month after the film was released, De Palma downplayed his role on the film:
"Being a writer myself, I don't like to take credit for things I didn't do. I didn't develop this script. David used some of my ideas and he didn't use some of them. I looked upon it more clinically, as a piece of material that has to be shaped, with certain scenes here or there. But as for the moral dimension, that's more or less the conception of the script, and I just implemented it with my skills - which are well developed. It's good to walk in somebody else's shoes for a while. You get out of your own obsessions; you are in the service of somebody else's vision, and that's a great discipline for a director."
Although De Niro was De Palma's first choice to play Capone, the director met with Bob Hoskins
Bob Hoskins
Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...
to discuss the role. When De Niro took the part, director De Palma mailed Hoskins a cheque for £20,000 with a "Thank You" note, which prompted Hoskins to call up De Palma and ask him if there were any more movies he didn't want him to be in.
Reception
The Untouchables opened on June 3, 1987 in 1,012 theatres where it grossed $10,023,094 on its opening weekend and ranked the sixth-highest opening weekend of 1987. It went on to make $76.2 million in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. According to producer Art Linson, the polls conducted for the film showed that approximately 50% of the audience was women. "Ordinarily, a violent film attracts predominantly men, but this is also touching, about redemption and relationships and because of that the audience tends to forgive the excesses when it comes to violence".
The Untouchables was also a critical success. It received a mostly positive reception and has an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
, of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, gave the movie a glowing review, calling it "a smashing work" and saying it was "vulgar, violent, funny and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful". Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, on the other hand, said, "The Untouchables has great costumes, great sets, great cars, great guns, great locations and a few shots that absolutely capture the Prohibition era. But it does not have a great script, great performances or great direction". Hal Hinson, in his review for the Washington Post, criticized De Palma's direction: "And somehow we're put off here by the spectacular stuff he throws up onto the screen. De Palma's storytelling instincts have given way completely to his interest in film as a visual medium. His only real concern is his own style". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
wrote, "Mamet's elegantly efficient script does not waste a word, and De Palma does not waste a shot. The result is a densely layered work moving with confident, compulsive energy".
Ebert singled out De Niro's scenes portraying Al Capone as the biggest disappointment of the film, while giving praise to Sean Connery's work. While he was voted first place in a Empire magazine historical poll for worst film accent, Connery was awarded the 1987 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance. Pauline Kael called it "a great audience movie—a wonderful potboiler." Time magazine ranked it as one of the best films of 1987.
Academy Awards
| Award | Person |
|---|---|
| Won: | |
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the... |
Sean Connery Sean Connery Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy... |
| Nominated: | |
| Best Costume Design Academy Award for Costume Design The Academy Award for Best Costume Design is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for achievement in film costume design.... |
Marilyn Vance Marilyn Vance Marilyn Vance is an award-winning American costume designer and filmmaker.-Background:Born Marilyn Kaye, she was once married to Kenny Vance of Jay and the Americans. Marilyn became a costume designer in Hollywood... |
| Best Score Academy Award for Original Music Score The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:... |
Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces... |
| Best Art Direction - Set Decoration Academy Award for Best Art Direction The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999... |
Patrizia von Brandenstein Patrizia von Brandenstein Patrizia von Brandenstein is an American production designer. She was the first woman to win an Academy Award for production design and has been nominated for two more in the category Best Art Direction. She has shown versatility in creating sets for both lavish historical films and glossy... William A. Elliott William A. Elliott William A. Elliott is an American art director. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film The Untouchables.-External links:... Hal Gausman Hal Gausman Hal Gausman was an American set decorator. He was nominated for five Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction.-Selected filmography:Gausman was nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Art Direction:* The Absent-Minded Professor... |
American Film Institute
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
- Al Capone - Nominated Villain
- Eliot Ness - Nominated Hero
- AFI's 100 Years of Film ScoresAFI's 100 Years of Film ScoresPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.-The List:-External links:**...
- Nominated - AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
- Nominated Gangster Film
Historical inaccuracies
The film contains a great number of factual errors. Chief among these is the death of Frank NittiFrank Nitti
Francesco Raffaele Nitto , also known as Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, was an Italian American gangster. One of Al Capone's top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all strong-arm and 'muscle' operations...
. In the film, Nitti is thrown off the roof of the courthouse building by Eliot Ness into a car in the parking lot. In actuality, Nitti committed suicide in 1943 rather than face trial and imprisonment. Another notable inaccuracy is the number of Untouchables. In reality, there were eleven of them and none were killed, whereas in the film there are only four and the film ends with only two of them still alive. Finally, the depiction of Capone's fall is inaccurate. The actual trial went all the way to verdict and Capone was convicted, and sentenced to ten years in prison for income tax evasion
Tax avoidance and tax evasion
Tax noncompliance describes a range of activities that are unfavorable to a state's tax system. These include tax avoidance, which refers to reducing taxes by legal means, and tax evasion which refers to the criminal non-payment of tax liabilities....
and an extra year for contempt of court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
as a result of a completely separate investigation headed by Frank J. Wilson. However, in the film, Capone's own attorney betrays Capone by withdrawing the plea of "not guilty" and entering a plea of "guilty" clearly without Capone's consent (Capone even assaults his lawyer for this and loudly asks if such an action is true justice); such representation in U.S. courts is prohibited as unconstitutional, and would likely lead to the lawyer facing serious discipline, possibly being held in contempt or disbarment. Since a guilty plea cannot be made without the client's consent, no judge could give legal weight to the attorney's renegade plea.
The film also shows Eliot Ness as having a young daughter, but he in fact only had one child, a son Robert, whom he adopted in 1947, many years after Ness' dealings with Capone.
Video game
A side-scrolling video game was released by Ocean SoftwareOcean Software
The British company Ocean Software was one of the biggest European video game developers/publishers of the 1980s and 90s...
in 1989 on ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
, Amstrad CPC
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, MSX
MSX
MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...
, Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, and later on NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
, and SNES
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
. Based loosely on the movie, the game plays out some of the more significant parts of the film. Set in Chicago, the primary goal of the game is to take down Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
's henchmen and eventually detain Capone.
See also
- The Untouchables (1957 book)The Untouchables (1957 book)The Untouchables is an autobiographical memoir by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, published in 1957. The book deals with the experiences of Eliot Ness, a federal agent in the Bureau of Prohibition, as he fights crime in Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s with the help of a special team of...
- The Untouchables (1959 TV series)The Untouchables (1959 TV series)The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a...
- The Untouchables (1993 TV series)The Untouchables (1993 TV series)The Untouchables is an American crime drama series that aired for two seasons in syndication, from January 1993 to May 1994. The series portrayed work of the real life Untouchables federal investigative squad in Prohibition-era Chicago and its efforts against Al Capone's attempts to profit from the...