'The Untouchables' & 'Scarface'

One weekend, two Brian De Palma films.

I came out of this feeling ... empty.

I don't know how to comment on a film or films that I don't necessarily hate or anything, but there's something about them that leaves me feeling like they could have been more.

First, The Untouchables: the soundtrack is absolutely awful and single handedly kills the film for me.

Otherwise, isn't it a bunch of second- and third-tier actors (outside of Bobby DeNiro, whose presence is limited) half-assing a gangster period piece where we know the good guy is going to win.

The inherent problem with The Untouchables is that the story is moot. Prohibition in the United States lasted 14 years ending in its repeal in 1933. When did Eliot Ness' investigation start? 1929. Capone wasn't sent to prison until 1932, a year before Prohibition was repealed.

I'm supposed to invest in a story about the good guy standing up for what is right, law and order and all that jazz, meanwhile, the biggest way to combat Capone would have been to repeal Prohibition earlier and going after bootleggers didn't really matter in the first place.

Seems like a whole lot of work to get nothing done.

Also, it feels like De Palma tried to make Ness and Capone these two chess players, going mano y mano in this battle for the city of Chicago. Good versus evil. Unfortunately, he fails to complete this connection and there's an awkward last-ditch effort in the film when Ness fights in the courtroom to confront an irate Capone.

"Never stop, never stop fighting till the fight is done," Ness says. Capone, with his brow furrowed, looking confused doesn't understand. Maybe its too loud in the courtroom. Maybe he doesn't understand why some no-name fed is saying something with such conviction that Capone, himself, is supposed to understand.

As for Scarface, its my third time to watch it and I always come out of it feeling empty. I look at it like this: If someone from Somalia that has never seen Scarface and he or she asked me what it was about with no time limit, here's what I would say.

It's about a Cuban defector that becomes a drug kingpin and is shot.

It's a two-and-a-half hour film and I don't think three-quarters of it is important enough to really include in a potentially limitless summary. The sister and mother are not very important. The best friend is not very important. Tony's power play against Frank comes and goes. It's like there was no story arc, for lack of a better explanation.

There's two hours and 15 minutes of build up to Tony getting shot to death. That's not a movie, it's a short story.