Something a little different this time around. Thus far, my conversations with other bloggers on neo-classics has leant itself to the light and comedic. Today I figured we’d change gears a little and tackle something badass…and something whose neo-classic status has increased over the last decade or so.

As it happens the power-grab story that is Brian de Palma’s SCARFACE has somehow eluded Bob Turnbull all these years. But this week, Bob hunkered down to find out what happens once you get the money

MH: First thing’s first: What did you think you were in for?

BT: I thought my eyes would be rolling out of my head…Having seen that “Say Hello to my little friend!” clip a ton of times, I expected the movie to be amped up like that the whole way through and that De Palma wouldn’t be able to control himself. I thought every scene would be shouted at top volume and everyone was going to be a cliche character.

MH: Surprised you agreed to actually watch it!

BT: Oh, there’s still plenty of yelling and over the top characters (e.g. Robert Loggia as the crime boss), but De Palma contains them early on. The pace of the film and the broadness of the characterizations seems to match the pace at which Tony’s cocaine habit increases.

MH: I’ve got my “You’re wrong!” sign all shined up and ready to hoist buddy. Tell me, what did you think of SCARFACE?

BT: This came as a bit of a surprise to me – I had a lot of fun with it. At almost 3 hours in length, I expected a bloated, overwrought and cheesy affair. Now that’s exactly what I got, but De Palma manages to just keep everything moving forward constantly (without too many unnecessary camera flourishes) and a heightened level of tension.

MH: Wow, I’m sorta surprised! (Guess I’ll put my sign away) I thought you woulda been ready to unload on Pacino for how much he hams it up.

BT: Pacino goes for broke, but it strangely works in the movies favour because you never quite know when he’s going to go completely bonkers. The overdone Cuban accents felt like too much at times, but they never pulled me too far out of the movie. It doesn’t quite rank as a classic for me (or even as my favourite De Palma), but I’m glad I finally got around to seeing it.

MH: It has a strange legacy. It’s sort of an example of a film maligned upon release gaining legs with a new generation of audiences, no?

BT: I can see why it would gain more steam in the 90s – with Pacino going big in all his movies, you could see people wanting to go back and check out other big performances by him. De Palma managed to find a great pace to the movie (much more so than his previous film “Blow Out”, which is great in many ways but just has a very odd pace to it), so I could see how it would gain momentum with movie-lovers. Being quite bright and beautifully coloured helps too.

MH: It’s also gained a certain caché within the rap communtiy, but I can’t really speak all that knowledgeably as to why. What about the downside of it – what doesn’t work so well in SCARFACE?

BT: The characters – There’s not a lot to them. I enjoyed Tony on screen, but there’s not a ton of depth there. Steven Bauer was fine as his right-hand man Manny, but again, he was all surface. The most interesting character may have been Michelle Pfeiffer’s Elvira, but she simply wasn’t used very much. That might be one of my biggest disappointments actually. Once Tony and Elvira get together, she becomes superfluous. Granted, that kind of makes sense given Tony’s lust for power (so once he wins her, he cares less), but I wanted more interaction between them.

MH: Ain’t much sadder than an underused coke whore. I seem to remember this film feeling very 80’s. Does it play as especially dated?

BT: The club scenes. Oh my, those club scenes…The incredibly cheesy 80s synth music (which was even bad at the time), the, uh, “dancing”, the clothing, etc. Oh, and let’s not forget Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s hair! If she ever ran out of steel wool for scrubbing her pots, she just had to reach up and grab a clump of it.

MH: Didn’t your hair look like that in the 80’s? All of that is to be expected though, anything else feel dated?

BT: Of course the drug scene places it firmly in Miami Vice territory, but otherwise the story construction and basic concept still works without the viewer having to think about what things were like in the 80s. Bad guys with guns are bad guys with guns. Speaking of which, have you seen the original 1932 version? It’s obviously “dated” in many ways too, but still works like gangbusters.

MH: Fess up – You want that house.

BT: I’ll settle for that bathroom…Holy crap, the tub alone is the size of my entire Living Room and Dining Room put together.

MH: What about the violence? When I first saw it at a young age I remember it being a bit much. Did it come off as exploitive?

BT: The film actually shows much more restraint than I expected when it comes to the flowing red stuff, but when he opens the flood gates it comes in waves. And I think that’s why it’s effective – he goes over the top (as do the best exploitation films), but he saves it for specific instances so he has time to build tension. OK, the chainsaw was a bit crazy, but it sure introduced us to the brutality of the trade early on, didn’t it?

MH: You mentioned watching the Howard Hawks original film recently too. How did this one compare as a remake?

BT: The original was violent – apparently taking about a year to get approved and released. Of course, it pales in comparison to what followed 50 years later, but bodies definitely pile up. Hawks used lots of shadows to avoid showing specific gore, but it was still effective and certainly got across the carnage left in the wake of the Capone clone.

I’m not sure saying that it compares favourably makes much sense since the two films are very different, but I very much enjoyed both of them. Paul Muni is just as goofily crazy in the first as Pacino gets, but also brings some real menace and smarts to his climb to the top. De Palma keeps many of the basic plot elements – certainly more than I expected – but changes many around due to the modern setting.

Though the ending of the sister’s arc makes more sense in the 1983 version, I kinda preferred how they handled it in Hawks’ take on the story. The opening in the original is a wonderful 3 and a half minute long single take that pulls you into a club, introduces you to some crime bosses and then shows the first murder of the film through shadows. It grabbed me right off the bat and sucked me in. But as examples of rises and falls of gangsters, both provide entertaining rides.

MH: Wow man – I never would have guessed you’d have dug it this much.

BT: I did enjoy it quite a bit. I think it’s flawed from the point of view of creating fairly unsubtle characters, but not everyone can be in a Mike Leigh film. If you get antsy when Pacino goes BIG, you might have a problem, but otherwise it’s a fast 2 hours and 45 minutes of gangster drug lords.

MH: So on a scale of one-to-five?

BT: You know I hate rating films, but I know that you won’t let up if I don’t (you’re pesky that way), so if it’s out of 5, I’ll give it 3.5 for sheer entertainment value.

(Editor’s Note: In case you’re keeping score, every movie in this series has landed a score of 3.5 out of 5)