Cheap Scarface Deluxe Gift Set - Scarface (1983) & Scarface (1932) (DVD) (Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer) (Brian De Palma) Price

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Customer Reviews of Scarface Deluxe Gift Set - Scarface (1983) & Scarface (1932)

Deluxe Gift Set - The world is yours.
This big box, appropriately, is a gaudy and luxurious waste of space. Not a bad package at all for DePalma's controversial epic. While some of the extras are nice, it's too bad they couldn't cough up any trailers. Universal brags on a transfer that leaves something to be desired - but it is at least widescreen. The real selling point here (for me, anyway) is the long awaited DVD premire of Hawks' 1932 "Scarface," also with no trailer, but looking great and including a very interesting alternate ending. <
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>A back to back comparison of the two films throws the DePalma film into a less than favorable light. Don't get me wrong. The remake is a great film. But the original is one of THE great films - a sophicated, crackerjack paced and dynamically realized little powerhouse of a movie. While far less explicit, it still manages to be a more emotionally powerful experience, even after many viewings - and the violence is somehow even more disturbing. The incestuous overtones of Tony's relationship with his sister are telegraphed loud and clear in their first scene together in Hawk's version. We don't need to hear her say, "Come on and f<@% me, Tony," although I have no objection to this approach. It's also easier to see what attracts the cool blonde in the original. The performance of Paul Muni is awseome, George Raft is also memorable, and on the side we get a very fine turn by Karloff as a rival gangster. His final bow in a bowling alley is a classic scene. <
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>There are a lot of thing's in the later version that we don't actually need, but that's what we love about it, isn't it? Stone gives no end of quoteable lines, despite all the F-words, and Pacino delivers them unforgettably. The slack pacing adds to the atmosphere of opulent decay, and throws the splashes of outrageous carnage into relief. I wouldn't say it's DePalma's best work, but it deserves a place among his best. It's certainly one of the defining films of the 1980s, even if you hate it. Hearing Moroder's reptillian disco theme creep in over the eerily appropriate Universal globe is a little rush. It's cute when Tony says he learned to talk from Bogart and Cagney - I didn't know those guys said 'f<@%' so much. The movie is loaded with moments. <
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>Incidentally, Hawks' film casts its shadow very consciously over "The Untouchables," as well - not just in the presence of a character based on Al Capone. Note that that film employs a circle motif that recalls the famous 'X' that haunts "Scarface"'s images. <
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Cuban Gangster Soap Opera Starring Al Pacino
Scarface exists on it's own terms - as a cautionary tale about a Cuban punk who arrives in Miami in 1980 and works his way to the top of the Cocaine power-heap, but it also begs comparison to Al Pacino's other work as that other famous gangster - Michael Corleone in the Godfather films. <
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>Oliver Stone's screenplay forms the foundation for Brian De Palma's film, and the violence and language are exceedingly raw. This is not a film for the easily offended. In fact, you could have a pretty strong stomach for excess violence and the F word and still be a little worn out by the end. <
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>Pacino's Anthony Montana has no redeeming qualities. He has all the deadly sins, and double doses of most of them. Where The Godfather's Michael Corleone is a conflicted character, Tony is sociopath through and through. Michael Corleone begins the Godfather movies with no intention of getting involved in the family "business", and by the end he has become one of the strongest gangsters on earth. He dreams of "going legitimate" and at various points in ALL of the Godfather films Michael ponders his place in the crime universe and how he can separate his life of crime from his family - who he seems to legitimately love. Tony Montana in "Scarface" has NO ambition of going straight - only of becoming a MORE powerful druglord. He treats women and his friends like dirt and walks through life with an arrogance that is, at best, unpleasant. When he is REALLY riled he is capable of just about anything, and this film shows his character doing pretty much that - just about anything. <
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>De Palma's direction is a cut above average, and the cast of Pacino, Pfeiffer and some excellent support from Robert Loggia, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Steven Bauer perform their roles adequately, but by the end I couldn't get over the feeling that I was essentially watching an extremely violent soap opera with a good cast. <
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>I'd say about 3.5 stars, but I'll round it to 4.