Untouchables, The - Special Edition [1987]

See Larger Image	List Price: £17.99 Our Price: £4.98 Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment Starring: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro Directed By: Brian De Palma Average Customer Rating:


Audience Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Binding: DVD EAN: 5014437851437 Format: PAL Label: Paramount Home Entertainment Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment Number Of Discs: 1 Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Paramount Home Entertainment Region Code: 2 Release Date: 2004-09-13 Running Time: 115 Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment Theatrical Release Date: 1987-06-03
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Editorial Reviews: The DVD extras follow the adage that if one has lemons, make lemonade. This "special" edition has no commentary track, and no new input from stars Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, and Andy Garcia or writer David Mamet. Yet DVD director Laurent Bouzereau has an ace up his sleeve that makes the four new featurettes (about 50 minutes of content) worth listening to: candid talk. The usual, stiff promotional take is jettisoned as producer Art Linson and director Brian De Palma honestly talk about the film's origins, the tricks of shooting, and the casting of Robert De Niro. These refreshing comments (plus insight from the cinematographer Stephen H. Burum and actor Charles Martin Smith), and better-than-average vintage interviews makes for valuable watching--even if the footage is intercut too often with film clips. To top it all off, there's a new Dolby Digital 5.1 EX soundtrack. --Doug Thomas
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Excellent and fast delivery Comment: Always wanted to buy this but had second thoughts about the price,bought this along with The Prestige and Equilibrium as part of the 3 for 10 offer. Speedy delivery and great value for money! Customer Rating: Summary: We can never forget the absolute vanity of the cause Comment: The film came long after the 1960s series and it was able to improve the discourse a lot from pure police and gangster violence and counter violence and counter counter violence to some kind of calmer and sounder vision of prohibition. The least we can say is the whole case was absurd. Absurd because prohibition was an idiotic policy and in 1931 it was on the very verge of being abrogated, nullified and voided. Absurd because they could never get Al Capone for his crimes since he never did anything himself but only through and via other people. Absurd because even tax evasion was nearly derailed by bribes to the members of the jury, to the judge probably and many other people. But it is also true that this famous case managed to make gangsters and the mafia think twice and start moving to legal operations for their own gangs and abandoning illegal operations to the street gangs, those they did not even try to control. It was also before the time of street gangs, mainly held and controlled by the Blacks and the Latinos, which was supposed to happen after WW2 with heroin and cocaine. The film here shows how fragile and brittle the police is when confronted to that crime. Apart from shooting first they have little moral certainty to hold in front of heavy corruption and hefty bribes. The film shows how these battle are necessarily in public places and they become some kinds of street war and there have to be collateral victims in the public. This is emphasized by the pram and baby scene, a scene borrowed from Eisenstein and transposed in that context with great art, though the meaning is a lot triter than Eisenstein's. On the Soviet side a baby in the middle of a real war act from the political power in place against some demonstrators who have to be eliminated by bleeding them to death. On the US side a baby in the middle of two shooting camps transforming a central station into a shooting gallery with cops on one side and criminals on the other. And what's more in a battle that will come to an end incessantly by political decision. The law was on the side of criminal absurdity. In Eisenstein the law was on the side of anti-historical repression. And in front of the law Eisenstein had romantic revolutionaries who will eventually win a few years later whereas the Untouchables had a band of criminal gangsters whose business was to make money by illegally importing and selling alcohol. In fact the whole value is in the punch line. Roosevelt has won and prohibition is out, what will you do Mr. Ness? I guess I'll get a drink. That's just the point. A battle that should never have come up if the bad policy that brought it up had not been adopted by a bunch of bigots. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines Customer Rating: Summary: "That's the Chicago Way!" Comment: Brian De Palma's depiction of Probition-era Chicago is a masterpiece of modern film-making, with Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and Al Capone (Robert De Niro) fighting it out for control of the city. Malone (played by Sean Connery) is a cop who teaches Ness how to get the seemingly "untouchable" mob boss, and the film (with dramatic and often violent scenes) chronicles the demise of the legendary gangster. Sean Connery received an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor) for his efforts, which is testament to the quality of this picture. Customer Rating: Summary: Brilliantly Made, But Not A Classic Comment: I watched this film for the first time today, oblivious as to what it was about and only interested in it because of the rave reviews I'd heard. Well, it definatley wasn't what I ewas expecting, but it was very good none the less. Set in the 1930s when alchohol was illegal in the US, Al Capone is the Crime Lord trading the stuff for masses of money, and Eliot Ness, the federal Agent who is determined to bring him down. I wasn't particularly blown away by any of the acting, I guess Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness is worth a mention, but although each character played their part well none of them stood out or really made the character their own. What does deserve a mention however is the style in which the Untouchables was filmed - lots of weird camera angles and shots, lots of dramatic music, all building up suspense, tension, fear, excitement, sadness, etc. The viewer gets sucked into this film, as long as they have the patience to sit through the first 30 or so minutes until it gets really interesting. A good film, very well made, but not one I'd be quick to recommend to friends or want to watch again in a hurry. Watch, but don't expect to be blown away. Customer Rating: Summary: QUITE LITERALLY 'UNTOUCHABLE' Comment: Director Brian Da Palmer's 1987 gangster epic made a star out of Kevin Costner (still one of his finest performances) and gifted Sean Connery the best role of his later career. It's an immaculate 30's set crime thriller as Elliot Ness (Costner) and his band of Untouchables go up against Robert De Niro's magnificently evil and slimy baseball bat weilding mobster Al Capone. The dialogue is flab free and the movie is full of great action sequences including the iconic and often pastiched 'baby/steps/Grand Central Station shootout. It's a fascinating, and true, story as Ness and his band of agents, accountants and old cops, attempt to put the most powerful gangster in pre-war America behind bars. They are twarted at every turn until the most mundane method of stopping Capone is discovered - should have remembered to pay that tax bill Al ! De Palmer has never bettered The Untouchables and Sean Connery's old warhorse of a street cop performance as 'Malone' rightly won him an Oscar. The Untouchables is up there with the very best films from the 80's. Stunning Stuff. More Reviews