The SmarK DVD Rant for Scarface: Anniversary Edition
– The original DVD version of this movie was legendary as a bad transfer, looking like a VHS dub of a movie that was gritty to begin with, so you can imagine how relieved I was when they finally announced a GOOD version of something that should be in the collection of every gangster movie junkie.
Sadly, they once again drop the ball, although not on the video this time.
The Film
“Nothing exceeds like excess”
If you watch the Godfather movies, and then Scarface, you’d be shocked that the same guy is playing the main character in both films. Whereas Al Pacino is reserved, dignified and quiet as Mafioso kingpin Michael Corleone, he’s brash, loud-mouthed and totally over-the-top as drug kingpin Tony Montana. Sadly, this would not be his most obnoxious performance (Scent of a Woman easily captures the ham award and the Oscar, too), but it’s certainly one of the ones he’s most fondly remembered for.
The plot is fairly unimportant, even though it was written by master conspiracist Oliver Stone, as it meanders through a few years in the epic rise and fall of a greasy Cuban who becomes a millionaire off cocaine in Miami by rubbing out the competition one-by-one. If this sounds vaguely like the plot of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, that’s because this is the movie that establishes the archetypes for every “drug lord” movie to come out of Hollywood for the 20 years following its release. But really, who could follow THIS act? Directed with almost primal and visceral energy by Brian DePalma, acted so wonderfully by Pacino, and written by a young and hungry Oliver Stone, “Scarface” blows all the pretenders out of the water with its swagger and bravado right out of the gate, just like Tony himself.
“Scarface” traces the rise of two-bit Cuban “political refugee” Antonio “Tony” Montana as he turns a cheap hit in a Florida refugee camp into a full-time job working for local Miami drug runner Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia, playing his usual slimy character). To get that job, he survives a famous encounter with Columbians, involving a chainsaw and a bathtub. Lopez gives Tony two rules to live by while taking him under his wing:
1) Never underestimate the greed of the other guy
2) Never get high on your own supply.
These lessons would prove to be a double irony, because Lopez himself fails to remember the first one when dealing with Tony, and then Tony COMPLETELY fails to remember the second one for the rest of the movie. Showing either a foolish trust in Tony (or a total disregard for his intelligence), Lopez sends him as a right-hand man for his own right-hand man, Omar Suarez, as he negotiates a multi-million dollar coke deal with South American drug czar Alessandro Sosa. However, Tony goes behind Omar’s back and cuts his OWN deal with Sosa (supposedly in Frank’s name, although we can all see exactly what’s going on between the lines), which effectively severs the relationship between Lopez and Tony and sets Tony down a path of building his own drug empire. However, like everything else in his life, that empire is built on bluffing and bravado (as he tells Sosa in a famous quote, “The only things I have in this life are my word and my balls, and I don’t break them for nobody!”), which is again totally opposite the character he plays in the Godfather movies. Soon, Tony is racking in millions of dollars at a time, but since he’s all street smarts and no business smarts, he soon falls victim to the same trap Al Capone (the rough inspiration for this movie) fell into — tax evasion. From there, it becomes inevitable to watch the increasingly stoned and paranoid Montana self-destruct, until the movie ends as you knew it was going to from the start — with Montana’s bluster finally shot down by a hail of bullets from someone he pissed off one time too many.
There’s lots of secondary characters and plots in the movie, none of which are terribly thrilling, truth be told. Tony has his own right-hand man, of course, in the form of lady-killer Manuel Ray, and he’s in love with Tony’s sister Gina (played by a young Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, looking all of 50 pounds and wearing an afro), which is a major no-no. Not just because every guy knows that, but because Tony is apparently (and creepily) madly in love with his own sister and won’t let any man touch her. Well, we knew he had issues, but seriously, yuck. Tony also maintains Michelle Pfeifer as a trophy wife, after stealing her from Lopez, although god knows why anyone would want to marry such a bitchy and whiny addict. She gets into an argument with Tony shortly before his downfall begins and disappears from the movie entirely, actually becoming the only main character to survive in the process.
What makes the movie great is the timeless badass appeal to it — it’s full of instantly quotable lines (most of them from Pacino, of course, most famously “Say hello to my little friend!” as he whips out a BIG gun), memorable scenes (the chainsaw, Manny’s lessons on using the tongue, the final shootout), and great character actors chewing up the scenery in a good way. Everyone throws themselves into the work with gleeful abandon, throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the movie to see what works to tell the story.
What HASN’T aged so well is the score from Georgio Moroder, as his synth and 80s cheese-puff disco rock soundtrack firmly dates the movie as early 80s, and the pink jackets and skinny ties in the disco speak for themselves. Also, the movie is just too long. There’s just not enough story to make it work for 3 hours. Tony comes to America, sells drugs, gets rich, pisses off Sosa, gets whacked. A lot of the stuff in between is filler (the stuff with the bomb and the drug speeches sets up the final showdown, but it’s so silly and tacked-on, trying to make Tony seem human when he’s NOT and putting all this political bullshit into the movie where it’s not needed) and just serves to slow things down. But that’s kind of the nature of the beast with this type of movie. They’re going for an epic, so that’s what you get.
The movie is famous for its violence, but it’s actually not as violent as is generally thought of — much of the gore takes place off-screen, or with trick cuts so you don’t actually see the shots. The imagination makes it tremendously violent and gory, but the actual MOVIE is not so much. The REAL offensive aspect of the movie is more likely the swearing — in fact the movie set a record for most occurrences of the word “f*ck”, which is a record that I believe still stands. At one point even Tony’s wife complains about the swearing. Plus there’s ludicrous amounts of drug use. Tony diving headfirst into a giant pile of cocaine is another iconic image from the movie.
So all in all, it’s a great movie, but not quite a classic due to the poorly-aging soundtrack and bloated script. Still, for any aficionado of gangster movies or mafia movies (of which this is a close cousin), it’s a must-have. And if you want to know where the Razor Ramon character came from, almost word-for-word, there ya go.
“Say goodnight to the bad guy!”
The Video
Now this is much better. The box boldly advertises that the movie has been restored to “better than original” quality, and it’s hard to argue. Restored in glorious 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, all the garish pink and neon of 80s Florida is here in all its gaudy glory, as the print has been cleaned up significantly, with much of the noise gone and the picture crisp and clear. A HUGE improvement over the terrible first transfer, to be sure, although I was too young to see the movie in theatres so I can’t comment on whether it’s better than the original. As usual, a pan-and-scam version is also available.
The Audio
One step forward, 10 steps back. This is presented in both DTS and Dolby Digital, both supposedly in 5.1 surround, but in reality both mixes are TERRIBLE and barely qualify as Dolby Surround. The original movie was 4-channel stereo, too, so it’s ridiculous that everything is coming from the center channel. Why even bother if you’re just mixing the occasional surround in? Voices are too quiet, the subwoofer is non-existent (I literally didn’t hear it rumble once during the DVD), gunfire is muffled instead of crisp and into the surround channels (and for a movie that’s 70% gunfire, that’s bad) and basically I had it cranked the whole way and didn’t worry about annoying the people upstairs once. A horrifyingly disappointing sound mix for a movie that’s supposed to be all about excess.
The Extras
Another disappointment. This is a two-disc set, and the first disc is only the movie — no commentary, which is LUDICROUS considering that Oliver Stone, just to name one, loves to do them and is impossible to shut up. There’s so many people they could have gotten to do a commentary, either in the form of a filmmaker or a critic to put the movie in perspective.
The second disc is mainly composed of three mini-documentaries that are basically chapters in one longer one. You get “Scarface: The Rebirth”, which talks about the rewriting process to go from the original 1932 vision of the movie to the cocaine-and-disco Cuban vision of the movie in 1982. That’s about 15 minutes. Then there’s “Scarface: Acting” which details the thrilling process of casting everyone, revealing that, shockingly, just about everyone got the part by auditioning and reading for the producers. WOW. What insight. I wanted to hear more about Pacino’s crazy method acting techniques, but whatever. This runs about 10 minutes. Finally, you get “Scarface: Creating” which is about 30 minutes long and covers the fight with the MPAA, arguments with Cubans in Miami that led to moving the production, and all the other cool stuff behind the scenes. Unfortunately, none of this is really deep or insightful and much of it is talking heads over scenes from the movie. Either no on-the-set features were ever made, or the footage was lost, or something. Judging by the state of Universal these days, it was probably the latter.
You also get a 3 minute featurette about how the movie was edited for TV, and this is pretty funny. Yes, there really was a network TV version of the movie.
Next up, about 15 minutes of deleted scenes, which are mostly extended improv bits and alternate camera angles of stuff that’s already there. The “new” stuff is boring and is better left on the cutting room floor.
Finally, another featurette, “Origins of a hip-hop classic”, as various rappers are interviewed about the influence that the movie had on them. It’s about 15 minutes long and is one of the most idiotic and vacuous extras I’ve seen on a DVD all year. Basically, black guys really like the movie because it speaks to their generation or something. If you want to hear rappers recapping the plot of the movie and quoting lines from it, and talking about a what a “great nigger” Tony Montana is, this is for you.
I found the extras immensely disappointing, but at least it’s better than the original version, which had nothing. The entire Universal movie studio is up in the air right now and probably on the chopping block, so this kind of lackadaisical approach to their releases isn’t unexpected, but boy there could have been a million other ways to approach this thing that would have made everyone happy.
A great movie that again could have been so much better on DVD with a little more effort.
The Ratings:
The Film: *****
The Video: ****
The Audio: **
The Extras: ***
