The Untouchables revisited "Brings a knife to a gunfight!"

Ok, so I've been doing quite a few post revisitations lately and I figured why not do another???  So this post will be a re-write on my original review of the 1980s crime thriller, The Untouchables.  So after 30 years (unreal I know!) how does film hold up???  Well let's grab a badge and a gun and find out....

And the usual warning is coming....

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY 

So, the film is set during the prohibtion era in Chicago in 1930, where Al Capone (Robert De Niro) reigns supreme and has most of the city under his control, and he supplies liquor at high prices.  One of the bar's in the city however refuses to buy Capone's beer, and as a result the bar is destroyed in an explosion by Capone's men.

Meanwhile, bureau treasury officer Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) who has been summoned to stop Capone, and he organsies a raid on Capone's warehouses, only to find that he has been set up as the warehouse crates contain japanese umbrellas.  Humiliated in the press, Ness soon is met by the mother of a girl who killed in the explosion in the bar, who insists that he stop Capone now.  Ness is then compelled to meet up with one of the tough beat cops, Malone (Sean Connery), whom he met on a walkway bridge the night before, he asks Malone for his help, but Malone refuses as he doesn't want to risk his life (which was the reason he walks the beat).

Ness however is soon met by Malone again who tells him he will help him get Capone, and they set about putting together a small team of men, which includes a bureau accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Anthony Smith) and police trainee and sharpshooter, George Stone (Andy Garcia).  Together the men successfully launch a raid on one of Capone's warehouses, where they impound the liquor and arrest the men.  As a result Capone, at one of his dinner parties, kills the manager of the warehouse in full view of his men, with a baseball bat.

Capone then sends his main enforcer, Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) to intimidate Ness, by sending him a friendly warning about his family.  Ness then sends his wife and his daughter away from their home, and at the same time Malone arrives on the scene with news that of a big international shipment coming in over the Canadian border.  Ness and his men travel to the border and with the help of the Canadian mounties they raid the liquor shipment.  Ness kills one of Capone's men in self defence during the raid, and Stone is injured in the arm by a gunshot.

Ness also interrogates one of Capone's men, George (Brad Sullivan), who they captured, and initially refuses to talk, but Malone takes the dead man who Ness killed earlier and shoots him in the head, after which George panics and cooperates.  On hearing the news of the raid, Capone is furious and orders Ness to be killed as well his men and his family.

As a result Nitti smuggles himself into the Chicago police station, disguised as a police officer, he shoots Oscar and George dead in a lift.  Enraged by this, Ness storms into Capone's hotel and confronts him on the stairs, but Malone restrains and takes him away, leaving Capone yelling abuse at Ness.

After this the DA (Clifton James) whom Ness was using to prosecute Capone, decides to drop the case. Malone angry at Ness's defeat tells him to stall the DA as he will try and find out the location of Capone's bookeeper, Walter Payne (Jack Kehoe) with whom if they capture him, they can force him to testify against Capone.

Malone meets with his police chief, Mike Dorsett (Richard Bradford) whom leaked the info about the previous shipments, and forces him to reveal the whereabouts of the bookeeper.  However before Malone can meet with Ness to tell him the info, Nitti sets up an ambush at Malone's whom and shoots him down with a machine gun.  Ness soon arrives at Malone's apartment, and with his dying breath, Malone tells Ness that the bookeeper is a on train.Ness with Stone then heads to the train station where he has a gunfight on the stairs of the station with Capone's men who guard Payne, who they kill and take Payne to stand trial.

Payne is soon put on trial and testifies against Capone in court and during the trial Capone consults with Nitti, and Ness notices that Nitti is wearing a gun inside his jacket.  Ness tells the court bailiff to escort Nitti outside the courtroom, where Ness searches him and takes away his gun, but Nitti reveals he has a permit for it, written by the mayor of Chicago.  Ness however also takes a pack of matches from Nitti's jacket, which reveals the address of Malone's apartment, which leads Nitti to flee in panic, shooting the bailiff.

And from here Ness engages Nitti in a cat and mouse gunfight on the rooftops as Ness tries to get revenge for the deaths of Malone and Oscar while his court case with Capone hangs in the balance... 

THOUGHTS 

The Untouchables was critically acclaimed on its release and its fairly easy to see why as it is a very solid, polished and highly entertaining crime thriller.  There have been in the past before it plenty of crime films, but in the Untouchables we got a great mix of drama, action as well as moments of humour.

The film however is of course based on real life events but it also does take some liberties with the truth aswell but I will get more into them later in the review and for the sake of Hollywood sensationalism you will always get some distortions of the truth.  Regardless of this though the film still is well crafted and has a largely fine script by the acclaimed playwright, David Mamet.   

PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES (Warning: this section will contain strong language and spoilers!) 

Performance wise the film is mainly very good and its features a strong solid cast.

However I have to start with Kevin Costner, who while he is a very decent and competent actor, I feel his performance here as Eliot Ness is a bit wooden and stilted at times and he lacks the intensity required to play the character.  This is not however to say that he doesn't have some good moments in the film as he certainly does have some good scenes and overall his performance isn't bad.

And to mention a few for starters there is the scene where Ness first meets Malone on a bridge as Ness throws away a piece of paper with a message from his wife saying she's proud of him and Malone tells off Ness for throwing his garbage away.  And in the scene Ness reaches into his jacket pocket for something but Malone stops him and places his truncheon on the jacket and he asks "OK pal, why the mohashka??  Why are you packing the gun?!" and Ness says "I'm a treasury officer!" and Malone takes a moment and says "Alright, just remember what we talked about now!" and walks off.

This however leaves Ness in a state of anger and disbelief and he walks after Malone and says "Hey, wait a minute! What the hell kind of policemen you got in this god damn city? You just turned your back on an armed man!" and Malone says "You're a treasury officer" and Ness sharply says "How do you know that?!  I just told I was??" and Malone says "Who would claim to be that, who was not?? Hmm?".

Then there is perhaps Costner's best scene in the film where an associate of Capone's, Alderman (Del Close) tries to brive Ness in his office.  And in the scene, Ness suddenly cuts off Alderman's bribe offer and asks Malone, Stone and Oscar to come into the office.  And Ness tells Alderman "In roman times, when a when a fellow was convicted of trying to bribe a public official, they would cut off his nose, and sew him in a bag with a wild animal, and throw him in a river" and Ness crumples up Alderman's bribe envelope and tells him "You tell your master that we must agree to DISAGREE!" and he throws the enevelope at Alderman.  And Alderman warns him "You're making a mistake" and Ness says "Yeah I know, well I've made them before I'm beginning to enjoy them!" and he grabs Alderman by his jacket and says "And you tell Capone, I'll see him in hell!" and he throws him out.

Another good scene is just after (SPOILER!!) Oscar is murdered by Nitti, Ness storms into the hotel where Capone is staying and he sees Capone walk down the stairs with his men and his young son.  And one of Capone's goons walks toward him and says "Something you want in here?" and Ness says "My friend was killed today" and the goon says "I  don't care!" and Ness says "You don't care...." and decks the goon and he says "Now he does!".

And Ness challenges Capone "Come on here, Capone! You want to fight? You and me, right here?! That's it, come on! What's the matter? You afraid to come out from behind your men, you afraid to stand up for yourself?!".  And this pisses off Capone, who says "You wanna do it now?!  You wanna do the mat right now?!" and Ness shouts "Yeah! Come on, you guinea son of a bitch!" which riles Capone even more and he shouts "You talk to me like that infront of my son?!  Fuck you and your family!" and Ness goes for his gun but Malone suddenly arrives and restrains him and they leave.

Then there is the gunfight between Ness and Nitti, which kicks off with Ness finding a pack of matches from Nitti's jacket and he lights one and from the back of the pack he sees the address of Malone's apartment, which Ness immediately susses that Nitti killed him.  And Ness says "1630 Racine....you know I had a friend that once live there...!" and Nitti pulls his gun out and does a runner and Ness chases up onto the rooftops.

And after Ness prepares to arrest Nitti, he says to him "They're gonna burn you, buddy!" and Nitti says "Oh yeah?" and Ness says "Yeah!  I'm going to see you burn, you son of a bitch, because you killed my friend!" and he pushes Nitti away.  And Nitti taunts Ness by saying "He died like a pig" and Ness grabs Nitti and says "What did you say???" and Nitti again says "I said your friend died screaming like a stuck Irish pig. Now you think about that when I beat the rap!".  And as Nitti walks away, a furious Ness suddenly walks up behind him and pushes Nitti off the rooftop to his death and Nitti screams as he falls to the ground and Ness shouts at him "DID HE SOUND ANYTHING LIKE THAT????!!!".

Sean Connery next up puts in a terrific performance as the tough veteran cop, Malone, who helps Ness in bringing down Capone for which he won an Academy award for best supporting actor.  And despite the lapses in his so-called Irish accent, Connery is great throughout and it would be tough not to feel for him in his final scene.

Connery has his share of great moments in the film and he gets the best dialogue and it would be hard to mention all his great scenes so I will confine myself to a few and for starters there is the scene where Malone meets with Ness in a church.  And the two of them sit together and Malone says to Ness "You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?" and Ness says "Anything within the law" and Malone says "And THEN what are you prepared to do?!  You see what I'm saying?  If you are gonna open the ball on these people you have to be prepared to go ALL the way!  Because they are not gonna give up the right until one of you is dead!".

And Ness says "I wanna get Capone, I don't know how to get him" and Malone says "You wanna know how to get Capone? This is how you get him.  They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.  THAT'S the CHICAGO way! And that's how you get Capone!  Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I'm offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?".  And Ness says "I have sworn to capture this man with all legal powers at my disposal and I will do so!" and Malone takes a moment and says "Well, the Lord hates a coward" and he shakes hands with Ness and says "Do you know what a blood oath is, Mr Ness?" and Ness says "Yes" and Malone says to him "Good, cos' you just took one!".

Then there is the scene where Malone and Ness try and recruit a rookie cop for their team down at a training firing range and Malone questions, an Italian American, George Stone (Garcia).  And in the scene Malone asks Stone "Where are you from, Stone?" and Stone says "From the South side" and Malone says to him "Stone. George Stone. That's your name? What's your REAL name?!" and Stone says "That is my real name" but Malone persists "Nah, what was it before you CHANGED it?!" and Stone takes a moment and says "Giuseppe Petri".  And this angers Malone, who says "Jeez, I knew it!  That's all you need, one thieving wop on the team!" and George asks him "Hey, what's that you say?" and Malone carrying a clipboard prods it against George's chest saying "I said you're a lying member of a no-good race!".  And this prompts George batter the clipboard out of Malone's hands and he points his gun at Malone's chin and says "Much better than you, you stinking Irish shit pig!" and all of a suddeny Malone is impressed and says "Oh, I like him!".

Another good scene is when Malone and Ness along with Stone and Oscar go on their first raid on Capone as they prepare to break into one of Capone's liquor warehouses.  And Malone says to Ness as they stand outside the warehouse door "If you walk through this door now, you're walking into a world of trouble and there's no turning back, you understand?" and Ness says "Yes, I do" and Malone then takes an axe and smashes the door in and unlocks and they go in and raid the warehouse.  And as Malone says to workers "All this stuff is impounded!  You're all under arrest!" and as the manager walks up and says "Hey this isn't good!  This isn't right!  You got a warrant?!" Malone replies "Sure, here's my warrant!" and he hits him twice in the stomach with the butt of his shotgun and Malone says to the others "How do you think he feels now? Better? Or worse?!".

Then we have the scene where Malone confronts the police chief, Mike Dorsett as he presses Mike to find out where they can find Capone's book keeper, Walter Payne.  And in the scene the two of them argue loudly and Malone shouts at Mike "Mike, they ruined this town!  And for 20 years I can't eat my food with the shit that's goin' and saying I'm a cop!" and Mike shouts at him "Bullshit!  Fuckin bullshit!".  And Malone shouts at him "I need to know where this guy is and I need to now, or I'm gonna rat you out for all the shit that I know you've done in your life!  I'm gonna turn you over!" and the two of them start to fight, which ends with Malone slamming Mike against a wall and taking out his gun.  And Malone says to Mike "Right, let's cut the woofing, pal!  You tell me, or you goin' to hospital or the fuckin morgue!". 

And last of all there is the scene where one of Capone's thugs sneaks into his house armed with a switchblade and as he tries to creep up on him, Malone suddenly turns around carrying a sawn-off shotgun.  And Malone laughs saying "Isn't that just like a wop?!  Brings a knife to a gunfight!" and Malone starts to chase the thug out of his apartment and he shouts "Get out of here, ya dego bastard!  Go on!  Get your ass out of here!" only for him stop at his door and see Nitti from a distance with a Tommy gun, who opens fire on him....

Robert De Niro here also does a fine job as Al Capone and for the role he put on 30 pounds in weight (half the weight he put on for "Raging Bull") although he still does have some hammy moments in the film himself, however overall when it comes to play a sinister gangster, few do it better than De Niro.

And De Niro has quite a few good scenes in the film, too that include the film's opening scene where Capone is about to be shaved and some newspaper reporters stand over him asking some questions.  And one of the reporters asks Capone "And what do you say to those about your reputation is that you control your business through violence.  That those that don't purchase your products are dealt with violently".  And as the barber is about to shave Capone, Capone flinches a little at the question, which accidentally causes the barber to cut his chin but Capone puts him at ease and says "Its alright" and Capone says to the reporter "I grew up in a tough neighbourhood. We used to say, "You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word."  And in that neighbourhood it might've been true.  And sometimes your reputation follows you.  There is violence in Chicago of course, but not by me and not by anybody I employ.  And I'll tell why, because it's not good business".

And to paradoxically show Capone's real nature there is the scene where Capone, not long after Ness's first successful raid on the gangster's liquor warehouse, Capone addresses his men at a dinner party.  And in the scene Capone addresses his men and says to them that his main passion in life is baseball and he sets up a scenario about the importance of teamwork while walking around holding a baseball bat.  And Capone says to the men of the imaginary baseball player "If his team don't field... what is he? You follow me? No one. Sunny day, the stands are full of fans. What does he have to say? "I'm goin' out there for myself!".  But... I get nowhere unless the team wins!".  And Capone stands behind the warehouse manager who was raided and proceeds to beat him to death with the baseball bat.  

Then we have the scene where Capone learns that Ness and his men seized control of his international shipment at the Canadian border, which enrages him further.  And Capone furiously addresses his men, shouting "I want you to get this fuck where he breathes! I want you to find this nancy-boy Eliot Ness, I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!".

And last of all is the scene where Ness confronts Capone at his luxurious hotel (Capone's that is!) and in the scene Capone taunts Ness angrily and he says to him "You fuck, you got nothing!  You're nothing but alot of talk and a badge!  You ain't got nothing in court, you ain't got the bookkeeper!  And if you were a man, you woulda done it by now!  But you ain't got a thing!  Young punk!".  

Andy Garcia next up is also very good as the young rookie cop, George Stone (aka Giuseppe Petri) who helps Ness in their attempts to take down Capone.  

Garcia's performance doesn't quite stand out as much as the others in terms of his scenes, so he kind of takes a bit of a back seat when it comes to alot of dialogue.  Although his most notable scenes are his first when Stone meets with Ness and Malone at the firing range.  And in the scene Malone taunts Stone by saying to him "I said you're a lying member of a no-good race!" and Stone knocks Malone's clipboard out his hands and pulls a gun on him and says "Its much better than you, you stinking Irish shit pig!".  However, Malone is impressed by Stone's grit and he says to him "You just joined the treasury department, son!" and Stone smiles and says "Yeah, ok".  

And lastly there is the scene near the end where Stone walks into Ness's office after Capone's trial is over and Stone says to Ness "I want to thank you for this" i.e. his opportunity and Ness says "No, thank you".  And as Ness takes out Malone's callbox key and pendant of St Jude, Stone says to Ness "Ah, Mr Ness, I think he would have wanted you to have this" and Ness says to him "No, he would have wanted a cop to have it" and he gives the pendant to Stone and shakes his hand and Ness walks out.

Charles Martin Smith also does very well in his role as the FBI accountant, Oscar Wallace, who is part of Ness's "Untouchables" team and he provides a bit of humour to the film with Wallace being so nerdily obssessed with his task to try and get Capone for income tax evasion.

And Smith's good scenes include the one where Oscar introduces himself to Ness and tells him he has an idea to get Capone and he shows Ness a statement and says to him of Capone "He has not filed a return since 1926!" and Ness blankly says "A return" and Oscar says "An income tax return!".  And Ness looks at Oscar and says "What do you do at the bureau, Mr Wallace?" and Oscar says "Oh, I'm an accountant!" and Ness starts to laugh and says "Would you excuse me for a second?".  

And lasly there is the scene where Ness and the others fly in a plane to the Canadian border and Oscar suggests to Ness that they should try and prosecute Capone for income tax evasion.  And Oscar says to Ness "You know he's making over 3 million dollars a year?.  But he's paid no taxes, nothing's in his name. If we can establish any payments to him, we can prosecute him for income tax evasion".  And Ness, who is sleepy says "What?" and Oscar shows Ness Capone's accounts book and he says "I said we can prosecute him for income tax evasion!".  And Ness looks at the book and says "Try a murderer for not paying his taxes?" and Oscar says "Well its better than nothing!" and Ness asks "Alright, how do we link him to the money?" and Oscar says "I don't know" and Ness gives him back the book and says "Go to sleep, Oscar!". 

Billy Drago is also pretty good as Frank Nitti, Capone's second in command, who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and do Capone's dirtywork as he targets Ness's men.  Drago also plays the part quite sinisterly too even if his depiction of Nitti isn't factually accurate (but then few Hollywood films are!).

And Drago's two main good scenes are firstly the one where Nitti parks outside Ness's house and issues him a friendly warning of sorts.  And Nitti says to Ness "Nice house, I said nice house!  You live there?!" and Ness stops and smiles and says "Yes" and Nitti who notices Ness carrying a present asks him "Little girl having a birthday, huh?".  And Ness suddenly becomes suspicious and Nitti says "Nice to have a family" and Ness says "Yes, it is" and Nitti suddenly becomes more sinister and says to him "A man should take care, make sure nothing happens to them!" and he drives off quickly.

And lastly there is the scene where Ness chases Nitti across the rooftops of the courthouse and Ness finally arrests Nitti but just before that Ness sees Nitti dangling on a rope as he tries to break through a window below and Ness is about to shoot him but stops himself and Nitti then looks up and grins as he sees Ness.  So Nitti says to Ness "Well here I am, treasure man, come on, arrest me!  What are you waiting for?!  Don't just stand there, arrest me!" and he holds out his hand, which Ness grabs who warns him "Don't push me!".  And as Ness removes Nitti's jacket and gun he tells him "I'm gonna come see you burn, you son of a bitch, because you killed my friend!" and Nitti says "He died like a pig".  And Ness says to Nitti "What did you say???" and Nitti taunts him "I said your friend died screaming like a stuck Irish pig.  Now you think about that when I beat the rap!".  

Richard Bradford is very good as the corrupt police chief, Mike Dorsett, who secretly slips info to Malone about Capone's shipments.

And Bradford's most notable scene is when Malone confronts Mike over the whereabouts of Capone's bookkepper, Payne.  And in the scene the two men run into a back alley while it rains heavily and Mike says "Where are we goin' for a swin?!  Get out of the rain, you fool!" and Mike angrily asks Malone "What?!  What?!".  And Malone says "I need just on more piece of information" and Mike says "One more?!  I just risked my life for ya!" and Malone says "I need to find that bookkeeper" and Mike says "You're crazy!  I warned you to get out of town, if they find out it was me I'm dead!".  However Malone continues to press Mike "I need to find that bookkepper!" and Mike angrily shouts "Your fuckin nuts, man!  Your fuckin out of your mind!". 

And as they continue to Malone angrily says to Mike "I need to know where this guy is and I need to now, or I'll rat you out for all the shit I know you'd one in your life!  I'm gonna turn you over!" and Mike stares at him and says "This is dead man talkin to me" and Malone says "Is it?!" and Mike says "You're dead" and tries to walk away but they start fighting.  And Mike appears to gain the upper hand and shouts "Who the hell do you think your are?!  I'll have your ass hangin from the flagpole in the mornin!". 

And last of all Patricia Clarkson does well as Ness's wife, Catherine, who's role in the film is rather small but she still does well with what she is given.  And for time I will just mention her first scene where Ness reads the paper about the bar being blown up at the start.  And Catherine says to Ness of the bombing "Yes, I heard it on the radio, but now its time to go to work" and Ness get's up and straightens Ness's shirt and his puts her hand through his hair "You'll make a good first impression" and they hug and she says "I love you, Eliot" and then she smiles and pushes him away and says "Now shoo!". 

DIRECTOR AND MUSIC

Finally moving onto the direction, Brian De Palma does a great job here with the film as he is an expert at cranking up the suspense during the film's tense action scenes especially in the scenes where Ness and his men raid Capone's men at the Canadian border, Malone's demise, the train station shootout and finally Ness's cat and mouse chase of Nitti. 

De Palma also proves his skills again when it comes to creating interesting and eye-catching visual compositions in the scenes, particularly the opening scene where we see an overhead shot of Capone sitting in a barber's chair surrounded by reporters.  Overall this is a consumate exercise in how to direct an action thriller from De Palma.   

As for the film's score by the legendary Ennio Morricone, its simply terrific and its main theme is very memorable and the score also has plenty of other highlights that include the Ness's raid at the Canadian border, the gunfight at the train station and also Ness's pursuit of Nitti over the courthouse rooftops.  And for me it easily stands out as one of Morricone's very best scores overall although he would go on to provide a similar score in the Clint Eastwood thriller, In the Line of Fire but for me this score is far better.

FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

As for flaws....yeah OK as good as The Untouchables might be it still does have a few. 

And to start off it has to be said like quite a few Hollywood films, it heavily fictionalises the real life events behind Ness and Capone.  And in the film it depicts Ness as almost single handedly bringing down Capone and successfully prosecuting him for income tax evasion.  However in reality Ness had very little to do with Capone's actual prosecution in court as he had various grand jury cases before he was imprisoned. 

Another historical inaccuracy is the depiction of Frank Nitti in the film as Nitti is portrayed as more of a heavy than anything else, when in fact he was in acutally Capone's second in command and he headed the strong-arm and muscle operations, so while its possible he might have performed the odd hit, it seems unlikely he would have done it himself.  Also Nitti in the film is killed by Ness, which is again fictional as in reality, Nitti died years later, after he took over control of Capone's organisation, he later took his own life in 1943 in order to avoid prison.  In fact Nitti was portrayed more accurately in the crime film, Road to Perdition, 15 years later, by Stanely Tucci as a head business man and 2nd in command, rather than a heavy. 

In reality Ness also had a larger team of men with him, and not just four men, as in reality he had a team of 50 men which was eventually reduced to 11, and it seems very unlikely four men alone could bring down Capone's whole organisation! 

As for the film itself flaw wise I felt at times David Mamet's script somewhat overly simplified the events of the film, as he makes things happen rather quickly and simply.  As an example in the scene where Malone takes Ness on their first liquor raid, they do it out of the blue, almost on a whim, rather than plan it out or make a choice, and Malone coveniently catches Oscar walking into the room, where he promptly hands him a gun, and before we know it, they go on the raid!  

Actually I have to correct an error I made in my original post where particularly at the end where Capone's defence lawyer decides to instantly change his plea from not guilty to guilty, simply because Capone shoves him.  This is not quite the case because in the film as the judge decides to switch the juries due to the jurors being bribed by Capone and I'd assume since they would switch juries, the other jurors would not be bribed and would therefore probably not bring in a "not guilty" verdict, so Capone's lawyer recommended that he plead guilty. 

However there is an additional error here in the film because apparently a defence lawyer cannot have the power to directly overturn the defendent's verdict as he would need to really have his client's consent before doing so.  So again Capone's lawyer makes a rather rash decision without even consulting with Capone in the first place! 

I also felt throughout the film that Oscar kept making his case that they could prosecute Capone for income tax evasion, yet Ness seems to ignore this until later, and its almost like Mamet is trying to remind us of this and throw it in our faces as to how they eventually prosecuted Capone!  Yes I think we get it, David!

Another daft scene in the film for me comes when Ness during his raid at the Canadian border shoots one of Capone's thugs, who doesn't speak English but Ness afterward shouts at the dead man "What are you deaf?!  Didn't you hear what I said?!  What is this??!! A game???!!".  However Ness has just shot the guy dead so surely he must realise the man could not hear him since he's now deceased!  Its a moment in the film that always kind of bugged me.

And last of all I found it strange how Nitti murdered three people during Ness's chase of him yet none of this really get's back to Capone in the courtroom!  I mean his right-hand man has just killed three people but nothing is really made of it given that Capone is in direct control of this man, yet he has just ran amok shooting people!  Although Ness probably was keeping it quiet during the court proceedings anyway.  I also found it quite convenient how Nitti was able to land neatly into a diagonally parked car as he fell to his death but that's another thing!   

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So to sum up The Untouchables is still a highly enjoyable, suspenseful and engrossing thriller, and after 30 years is still as entertaining as it was on its release, and regardless of any of its flaws, De Palma and Mamet did a fine job in bringing the film to the big screen.

Right, so that's it for now and I will be back here again sometime in the near future with yet another post for you's.

Till then its bye fer now!