BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: Brian De Palma’s THE UNTOUCHABLES is a must see masterpiece - a glorious, fierce larger-than-life depiction of the mob warlord who ruled Prohibition-era Chicago… and the law enforcer who vowed to bring him down. This classic confrontation between good and evil stars Kevin Costner as federal agent Eliot Ness, Robert De Niro as gangland kingpin Al Capone and Sean Connery as Malone, the cop who teaches Ness how to beat the mob: shoot fast and shoot first.

FILM REVIEW: “The Untouchables” is a classic mob story that manages to stand on its own due to its larger-than-life execution and flair by director Brian De Palma. All of the great hallmarks of the mob film are present, but they are taken to a whole new stylistic level, both in the big characterisations and grand world of crime and corruption that is created for us to watch in this film. The story is a basic good versus evil plot; the characters are black and white, and the film is the battleground between these two sides. Given this simplistic, yet simultaneously intricate nature of this film, it is hard not to follow the plight of Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) as he sets about taking down Chicago’s top and colourful mobster Al Capone (Robert De Niro), particularly through all the thrills, action and great character moments.

Eliot Ness arrives in Chicago determined to bring down Al Capone’s world of organised crime during the 1920s Prohibition-era. He is initially unsuccessful largely due to his naivete that leads him to believe that the local police are on his side. Down on himself at the lack of success, he meets old-school cop Malone (Sean Connery) who helps Ness to see that he has to take on this mob fight on totally different, and more violent terms. Together they create a crack team of “Untouchables”; policeman who cannot be bought.

The casting of this film lies at the heart of what makes this film work so well. Kevin Costner is perfect as the straight arrow Eliot Ness; he conveys a natural and straight-forward good guy by his very own personality that it seeps in to the character very easily. Sean Connery works brilliantly as the gravitating centre and mentor for Ness, who is cynical to the bone but is convinced by Ness’ optimism to help him to fight the bad guys. Robert De Niro is clearly having a lot of fun playing Al Capone and creates one of cinema’s very memorable villains who is so bad that you cannot stop watching him every time he appears on screen. Other players such as Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith who round out the group of Untouchables are equally excellent, holding their own and making their own great contributions to the action and character moments. Thanks to these characters, the film is made up of funny, sad, dramatic and heightened moments that take you on an emotional rollercoaster throughout the film that will glue you to your seat until its all over.

Being a Brian De Palma mob film, “The Untouchables” contains a number of confronting scenes, even if they are timid by comparison to some of De Palma’s earlier work. The famous sequence of Capone bashing one of his failed underlings with a baseball bat must go down as one of the nastiest mob scenes put to film, and it largely works thanks to its simplicity and by what you do not see (much like De Palma’s staging of the chainsaw scene in “Scarface”). Malone’s death towards the end of the film is perhaps even more shocking, not only in the way it is done but because we have come to love this character during the course of the film that seeing him go down only compels us to want Ness to exact some sort of revenge. These scenes and more make for some graphic viewing, but they are done with just the right amount of violent intent that they are not overdone but raise the drama to another level that will draw you into its narrative even more.

“The Untouchables” is a great mob film that manages to transcend its genre and deliver a larger-than-life story with memorable characters that will sweep you along with it for its two-hour running time.

TECHNICAL REVIEW: The video transfer is quite reasonable, although it does appear soft throughout with noticeable grainness that affects the crispness and clarity of the picture overall. The audio transfer is for the most part quite good but it never really transcend its original stereo soundtrack and as a result lacks depth and does not make full use of the surrounds. Overall, the transfer is reasonable for a film of this age, but it could have been better.

EXTRAS REVIEW: The extras package on this single disc DVD comprises of over an hour of high quality featurettes covering all the important aspects to the production. The four main featurettes made specifically for this DVD release cover everything from the conception of the film to its release, and features a number of historic and new interviews with the cast and crew that offer great insight in to the production. The battle over Robert De Niro’s fee, the quest for Brian De Palma to make a commercial hit, the discovery of Kevin Costner as a leading man, Sean Connery’s displeasure of how he had to film his death scene with so many shots fired at him and many more stories make for some interesting viewing in these featurettes. There is also the original six minute featurette from 1987 which is more promotional than informative, and a theatrical trailer. Overall, an excellent complement of extras, made all the more impressive given this is a single disc edition DVD.

BOTTOM LINE: Worth having in the collection.