(The image above is taken from TheMovieDB.org)
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
The Untouchables has two major things going for it: its well-realised 1930s Chicago setting and its cast, particularly Robert De Niro who gives a decent and convincingly threatening portrayal of the notorious gang leader, Al Capone. Its lead, Kevin Costner, however, who plays the main 'untouchable' police officer Eliot Ness, doesn't do as good a job as his fellow performers and feels a bit stilted. Some of his scenes I would even consider laughable. The way he delivers the lines "God, didn't ya hear what l said? What are you, deaf? What is this, a game?!" was a memorable standout that gives off the impression of being a first take, a warmup for an "actual" performance. His romance with his wife, Catherine (Patricia Clarkson), also felt terribly cliched, like you've seen it in so many films before and his character as a whole just has very little going on - he's your typical morally driven good cop that's seen (or rather, is about to see) some shit.
And unfortunately, despite the other members of the cast's performances, the deaths of two 'Untouchables', Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery) and Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), lacked any real punch for me as the film didn't give them enough time to grow fully as characters or for the audience to sympathise with them and get to know them better. Yeah, Oscar's death is brutal for sure (getting shot in the head and then hung inside the elevator), but it just didn't yield that much of a reaction from me. Plus the copious amounts of blood that poured out of Connery's body made highly unrealistic the idea that he was still alive, let alone conscious. And he somehow manages to stay alive long enough to impart information and wisdom to Ness and Stone (Andy García)! The film isn't exactly historically accurate, not by any stretch of the imagination, but Malone's prolonged survival throws any semblance of reality out the window.
And hell, the death of a little girl in a bombing in the opening scene was far more impactful to me than two of the main characters' deaths (perhaps merely due to its abruptness)! Speaking of which, The Untouchables has this opening that raises the stakes higher than the film can actually manage as nothing else that happens throughout the rest of the story ever reaches that extreme. Well, other than maybe Ness throwing one of Capone's gangsters off the roof of the court building for insulting Malone (something which he apparently gets away with without consequences - but hey, its 1930s Chicago, I'll let it slide).
There are a few moments which I thought were excellent though, the most famous of which being the train station stairway scene, an elaborate, unfolding, escalating series of events that in real-time probably only lasted 30 seconds or so, but gets drawn out to great effect as the baby in a pram tumbles down the stairs amidst a violent shootout as the child's mother watches on in horror. In a lesser film, it would be cheesy at best, but The Untouchables manages to sell it well.
Other than that, the most I can say about the film is that its far from the best crime film I've ever seen - many of its elements seem borrowed and cobbled together from similar films and fiction - but its something a bit more than competent.
Overall: 6 or 7/10 - Somewhere around there; maybe more, maybe less.
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