Scarface

There are films that become popular, films that become classics, and then there are films like Scarface that somehow escape the screen entirely.

Tony Montana is everywhere.

The suits. The mansion. The mountain of cocaine. The chainsaw scene. The desk covered in white powder. That enormous gun. And, of course, “Say hello to my little friend.”

Even people who have never sat through all 170 minutes of Scarface probably know what Tony Montana looks and sounds like.

But that familiarity can disguise what an extraordinary film Scarface actually is.

Released in 1983, directed by Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone, Scarface takes the basic idea of Howard Hawks' 1932 gangster film and relocates it to the cocaine-fuelled Miami of the early 1980s.

At the centre of everything is Al Pacino, giving a performance so enormous that virtually nobody else could have got away with it.

Subtle it isn't.

Forget subtle.

This is Tony Montana.

Tony arrives in Florida during the Mariel boatlift with his friend Manny Ribera, played by Steven Bauer.

He has very little except ambition.

That's important, because underneath all the violence, drugs and excess, Scarface is essentially about a man who believes there should be absolutely no limit to what he can have.

Money isn't enough.

Power isn't enough.

Respect isn't enough.

Even getting what he wanted isn't enough.

Tony and Manny begin at the bottom, eventually taking criminal work that starts pulling them into Miami's cocaine trade.

And De Palma doesn't romanticise their introduction to that world.

The infamous motel sequence involving Colombian drug dealers and a chainsaw remains genuinely nasty. It establishes very early that the world Tony wants to conquer isn't glamorous when you're standing at the bottom of it.

Tony survives because Tony always believes he can survive.

That's simultaneously his greatest strength and the flaw that eventually destroys him.

Al Pacino Doesn't Play Tony Montana Quietly

You can't really discuss Scarface without discussing Pacino.

Tony's accent is huge. His movements are huge. His anger is huge. Even the way he sits in a chair somehow feels confrontational.

In another film it might have been ridiculous.

Here it works because Tony himself is ridiculous.

He's a man determined to occupy more space than everyone around him.

Pacino understands that.

Tony walks into rooms as though he already owns them, long before he actually does. When somebody has more power than him, Tony doesn't become intimidated; he becomes annoyed that the other person has something he hasn't got yet.

That's what makes the performance more interesting than the impressions of it suggest.

Underneath the swagger is insecurity.

Tony desperately wants people to recognise that he matters.

And once he finally has money, power and the enormous house to prove it, he seems less satisfied than ever.

Michelle Pfeiffer as Elvira

Michelle Pfeiffer's Elvira Hancock could easily have become little more than another symbol of Tony's success.

Instead, she's one of the clearest indicators that his fantasy isn't working.

Tony first sees Elvira when she is with drug lord Frank Lopez. Naturally, that makes her another thing Tony decides he wants.

Eventually he gets her.

And then what?

Their relationship is miserable.

Elvira is increasingly detached and dependent on drugs, while Tony becomes controlling and resentful. The luxurious surroundings don't make either of them happy.

That's one of the cleverer things about Scarface. Tony spends the first part of the film chasing the lifestyle represented by people such as Frank. Once he gets it, the film allows us to see just how empty that lifestyle actually is.

The mansion gets bigger.

Tony's world gets smaller.

Something that can disappear beneath the film's reputation for violence is just how funny Scarface can be.

Not comedy in the traditional sense, but Tony's complete lack of social restraint produces some wonderfully uncomfortable moments.

The restaurant scene is probably the best example.

Tony, drunk and furious, publicly tears into Elvira before turning his attention towards the wealthy diners staring at him.

He knows they despise him.

But he despises them too.

His argument is essentially that respectable society needs people like Tony so it can point at someone and say, “That's the bad guy.”

It's ugly, funny, angry and strangely perceptive all at once.

Tony might be a monster, but Scarface never suggests everybody outside his world is morally spotless.

Few movie homes scream 1980s excess quite like Tony Montana's mansion.

The marble. The enormous rooms. The staircase. The office. The bathtub.

And the ridiculous indoor fountain bearing those words again:

THE WORLD IS YOURS.

Everything is designed to demonstrate success, yet almost nothing about the place feels comfortable.

That's perfect.

Tony hasn't built a home.

He's built a monument to Tony Montana.

By the final act, it becomes his fortress.

And eventually his tomb.

Even on a first watch now, decades of references and parodies mean most viewers already know the line.

Yet the final assault still works.

Tony is isolated, heavily armed and surrounded by enemies as his empire finally collapses around him.

There's something almost absurd about how long he keeps fighting.

But that's precisely why it's such an appropriate ending.

Tony could never quietly disappear.

He could never accept defeat.

He certainly couldn't surrender.

So he stands there roaring defiance at an army of attackers, firing a grenade launcher and behaving as though sheer force of personality might still somehow overpower reality.

For most of the film, Tony's refusal to back down helps him rise.

In the end, the same characteristic ensures he has nowhere left to go.

And underneath him sits the promise that drove everything:

THE WORLD IS YOURS.

Not anymore.

It's theatrical, exaggerated and endlessly imitated, but it's difficult to imagine Scarface without it.

De Palma's direction also gives the movie far more visual personality than its reputation as a collection of quotable gangster moments sometimes suggests.

Then there's Giorgio Moroder's music.

That synth-heavy score plants Scarface firmly in the early 1980s, and that's now part of its appeal rather than something the movie needs to escape from.

Miami looks simultaneously seductive and poisonous.

The clothes, cars, interiors and music make the film a fantastic time capsule, but the central story hasn't become irrelevant.

People still understand Tony Montana.

Want more.

Earn more.

Own more.

Show everyone you've made it.

Then discover that getting everything you wanted didn't necessarily give you what you needed.

That hasn't aged much at all.