Netflix And Chill: The Untouchables (1987)

Perhaps enough time has passed now, perhaps I was just being a bit too harsh and/or swayed by the opinions of others years ago, but I have finally reached a certain level of acceptance when it comes to The Untouchables. I always enjoyed the movie itself, and it's another great example of just how great director Brian De Palma can be when able to put considerable resources alongside his not-inconsiderable talent, but it's time to finally admit that I think, yes, Sean Connery actually deserved his Oscar for his performance here. Is that admitting that he's great in it? Is he giving the best performance of his career? No. There are a number of other roles to look at in that regard. But he's the absolute highlight in a film that is stuffed full of treats, and he's the one you remember for a long time after the film is over and done. It also helps that he gets most of the best lines of dialogue from writer David Mamet.

Kevin Costner is the legendary Eliot Ness, a Treasury agent looking to battle against those breaking the prohibition laws, and someone unafraid to go up against the ruthless Al Capone (Robert De Niro). Not knowing who he can trust, especially after being burnt during what should have been his first major operation, Ness assembles a small and capable squad that includes beat cop Jim Malone (Connery), an agent who also does accountancy (Oscar, played by Charles Martin Smith), and a hot shot youngster from the Police Academy (George, played by Andy Garcia). They intend to disrupt Capone's operations until they can bust him, but that gets them a lot of unwanted attention. As well as a number of anonymous threatening individuals, a dangerous man named Nitti (Billy Drago) aims to get rid of Ness and his colleagues, and aims to show that they're most certainly not "untouchable".

It's hard to think of where to start when praising The Untouchables, almost every individual element is as good as you'd expect. Mamet's script is snappy and entertaining, the camerawork and visuals are as wonderfully lush and stylish as they always are in any De Palma movie, and the score from Ennio Morricone feels like some kind of collage of the wonderful work he did over the years with director Sergio Leone. Production design is gorgeous throughout, and there are a couple of fantastic set-pieces that I am sure people have thought about way before getting to this part of my review.

The casting is spot on, for the most part, although I have never been completely convinced by De Niro in the role of Capone. He's fine, but it feels too close to a number of other roles he's already closely identified with. If he'd managed to nail the accent, Hoskins (the second one signed on when De Niro initially couldn't play the part) could have perhaps given us a more interesting portrayal. Hey, at least Hoskins got to enjoy a large paycheck for not doing anything. Costner is a good solid figure at the heart of everything, the kind of thing he has excelled at in a number of features, and he's somehow able to get the focus back on himself after spending time sidelined by more interesting supporting characters. Connery is brilliant, as I've already said, and both Smith and Garcia liven up scenes by bringing very different energies into their performances. Drago is entertainingly villainous, and I'll also mention how much I enjoyed seeing Patricia Clarkson, despite the fact that she's given little more than a token role of "worried wife of the hero".

(Re)watching a great Brian De Palma film always reminds me that I should make the time to watch his entire filmography. They're not all absolute greats, and not all as good as this one, but his best work is enough for me to never begrudge giving some time to the films that didn't work half as well. And I can always come back to something like this if I end up disappointed by too many others.

9/10

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Entrapment (1999)

A blockbuster vehicle for Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones that hopes viewers are distracted enough by star power to overlook the sheer preposterousness of the plot, Entrapment isn’t a very good film, but it kind of works for what it wants to do.

Zeta-Jones is Gin, an insurance agent who becomes obsessed with catching the best in the business, Mac (Connery). She has been following his trail for a long time now, and she knows that she has a payday to tempt him. Mac is suspicious from the very beginning though, and so begins a wary dance of mistrust between them.

Directed by Jon Amiel, a man who spent a few years specialising in slick, forgettable, Hollywood product, Entrapment feels tailor-made for its stars. Writers Ronald Bass and William Broyles Jr. manage to play up the strengths of both, either deliberately or simply by writing a project that always aimed to have “charming male lead” and “sexy female lead” at the heart of it. 

Released in 1999, this felt dated within a year or two. The plot hinges on the millennium changeover, the age gap between Connery and Zeta-Jones felt like, even for Hollywood, it was stretching things a bit too far, and the most popular sequence (which I will highlight in the next paragraph) was shown again and again whenever the film was being discussed favourably.

Connery is allowed to be his roguish charming best, and he goes along with all of the nonsense with a wry grin and a twinkle in his eye, while Zeta-Jones works in his shadow, breaking out occasionally in sequences that gratuitously dwell on her classic beauty (case in point - the training sequence that has her contorting her body as she avoids “security lasers”). It is a fairly thankless role for her, but she acquits herself well enough to the task. Although the cast isn’t huge, there are also welcome performances from Ving Rhames and Will Patton, two great actors who earned some decent paychecks from this kind of fare while they were on the radar of the casting directors.

Compared to other con/caper movies in the same wheelhouse, this is pretty bad. Compared to the slick blockbusters of this time that put star power ahead of logic and plotting, many being Simpson and/or Bruckheimer productions, this is pretty bad. Compared to other films starring Connery or Zeta-Jones, well, they both have filmographies that fluctuate wildly in quality. Just accept the general badness of this anyway, and then allow yourself to enjoy it nonetheless. Because sometimes nonsense involving attractive a-list stars is enough to keep you entertained for an hour or two. And this still manages to entertain me, despite me knowing that it’s generally bad.

6/10

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The Rock (1996)

Despite being directed by Michael Bay, The Rock comes oh so close to being a perfect modern action movie. SO close. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it's only a horribly-edited car chase sequence that drags it down. Everything else, from the predictable moments of cheese to the interplay between the leads, is absolutely spot on.

A group of soldiers, led by General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris), steal some very nasty chemical weapons and take over Alcatraz. They have a number of citizens held hostage and are threatening to send some guided missiles to give many of the people of San Francisco an instant death sentence. The people in charge need to send in some Navy SEALS, led by Commander Anderson (Michael Biehn), but that team needs to be accompanied by a chemical weapons expert, Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), and John Mason (Sean Connery). Mason is the only person to have ever escaped from Alcatraz. In fact, he is pretty good at escape, which is why the main government representative is wary of getting him to help out. Mason was alleged to have stolen a microfilm just chock full of many dark and dirty secrets decades ago, and he's been held without trial ever since. Maybe revisiting Alcatraz will help him to become a free man once more.

You may not have thought so from the first sentence, but I tend to enjoy the movies of Michael Bay. They're absolutely fine when you're in the mood for some slick, bombastic, action. But they are rarely truly great. The Rock is truly great, and that is often despite the usual style of Bay being stamped all over it. It’s great because of the characters scattered throughout the groups of heroes and villains, and great because of a script, by David Weisner, Douglas Cook, and Mark Rosner, that makes things more morally shaded and complex than most of these action blockbusters. Ed Harris gets to play arguably the most interesting and ambiguous “villain” of the nineties, and he is just one essential part of the puzzle.

Cage is fun in his role, playing someone who steps up to do what needs done, despite being way out of his depth. Connery is perfect, an old survivor who has retained skills that make him a great ally or dangerous enemy. And Harris holds your attention completely every time he’s onscreen. The supporting cast also includes fantastic performances from John Spencer, William Forsythe, Michael Biehn, Tony Todd, David Morse, and many other familiar faces, all making the most of their screentime. Vanessa Marcil isn’t given much to do, she is “the girlfriend” who helps Cage to explain his personal investment in stopping those rockets being launched.

There’s a superb score, mainly from Hans Zimmer, some great fights that mix fun choreography and moments of brutality, and every interaction between Cage and Connery is gold. You cannot do much better than this if you want a fun action movie to fill a couple of hours during a Saturday evening. Almost an outright modern classic.

9/10

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