Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 42
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 8
Slick on the surface but loaded with artful touches, Brian DePalma's classical gangster thriller is a sharp look at period Chicago crime, featuring excellent performances from a top-notch cast.
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 1
Slick on the surface but loaded with artful touches, Brian DePalma's classical gangster thriller is a sharp look at period Chicago crime, featuring excellent performances from a top-notch cast.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 189,416
Like the TV series that shared the same title, The Untouchables (1987) was an account of the battle between gangster Al Capone and lawman Eliot Ness, this time in the form of a feature film boasting big stars, a big budget, and a script from respected playwright David Mamet. Kevin Costner stars as Ness, a federal agent who has come to Chicago during the Prohibition Era, when corruption in the local police department is rampant. His mission is to put crime lord Capone (Robert De Niro) out of
Jun 2, 1987 Wide
Jan 16, 2001
Paramount Pictures
All Critics (42) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (41) | Rotten (8) | DVD (33)
The results are watchable enough, with a particularly adept use of Sean Connery, Chicago locations, and period details.
It's vulgar, violent, funny and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful.
An unqualified triumph.
The Untouchables is a beautifully crafted portrait of Prohibition-era Chicago.
Top Critic...only marginally entertaining.
...it does not have a great script, great performances or great direction.
A perfectly adequate Hollywood movie, even classy and entertaining at times, but, despite De Palma's brilliant set piece which reworks the Odessa steps sequence from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, this is disappointing stuff.
...a riveting motion picture, enhanced now in the kind of high-definition picture and sound that does it proud. (HD DVD Edition)
The film mostly revels in nostalgia and feels numb.
De Palma's masterpiece is an exhilarating, moving and larger-than-life cops vs. crooks epic. Connery and De Niro steal the show in charismatic supporting turns. The best film of 1987.
The narrative thunders to its conclusion like a locomotive.
De Palma's stylish crime-gangster tale is extremely enjoybale in large measure due to the set-pieces and homages to Sergio Leone and Eisenstein, but also to Sean Connery's great performance for which he deservedly won the Supporting Actor Oscar.
De Palma, Mamet, De Niro, Connery ... what's not to like?
A true crime classic film; DePalma's best.
It's one of the all-time great gangster flicks, a gorgeously realized production that places archetypal heroes and villains in the service of a rip-roaring storyline.
Finally, a Brian De Palma movie for guys who watch movies with their ***** and don't want to be punished for it!
Steeped in De Palma's glorious violence and sinuous cinematography, but stripped of his tricky sensuality and his anarchic self-reflective wit.
Superb performances, exquisite direction and that Ennio Morricone score create an authentic 1920s Chicago feel and a hugely entertaining crime drama.
The pacing is lethargic as the director seems to treat this saga of law and order with mock seriousness.
This was a good movie. Everybody does there thing the way they should. I would probably have give it 4 stars if I had watched it at another time. It just wasn't the right time to see it...I saw it again during the right time....hence the 4 stars
December 29, 2008Super Reviewer
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