The Untouchables

source--Hollywood Online

The Untouchables is a hang-the-facts retelling of the Depression-Era war between Chicago gangster boss +Al Capone+ (Robert De Niro) and T-Man Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner). After being humiliated when an early raid on a Capone stronghold yields nothing but Canadian textbooks, Ness is willing to listen to the advice of veteran cop James Malone (Sean Connery, who won an Oscar for his performance): "[Capone] has a gun, you get a knife. He hurts one of yours, you kill one of his." Ness organizes a group of detectives whom he calls the "untouchables"--men who can't be bought off by Capone. David Mamet's fanciful screenplay includes such fabrications as a vengeful Ness throwing a screaming Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) off a courthouse roof to his death in 1933 (Nitti actually committed suicide ten years later), and a climactic railroad-depot shootout audaciously "borrowed" from Eisenstein's Potemkin. Somehow it matters very little that truth is a virtual stranger to The Untouchables: it thrills and entertains the audience, and isn't that what movies are all about?


My comment:

Andy's first important role following the breakthrough in "8 million ways to die". Many people have fallen in love with him since they watched this movie.

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