The Untouchables (Special Collector's Edition) [HD DVD]
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Movie Reviews of The Untouchables (Special Collector's Edition) [HD DVD]
Movie Review: Three-fourths Good
Summary: 3 Stars
The first three fourths of this movie are excellent. The Last quarter, while suspenseful, is full of plot holes which cast a pall of unbelievability over the film. Acting, Directing, and Dialogue are snappy, the film is fast paced, and quite rivetting. Movie Review: Prohibition Through Hollywood's Eyes
Summary: 5 Stars
Thoroughly enjoyable period-piece action flick. Interesting that Predator came out the same year. The Untouchables is every bit as violent, macho and bloody, yet Predator is seen as a mindless testosterone-overflowing glorified B-movie for teenage boys (which it is) and The Untouchables is seen as a "real" movie for full-grown adults.
The difference is, of course, De Palma, Mamet and co. make a genuine effort to place The Untouchables in a certain, albeit largely fictional, time and place and populate this world with characters who are allowed to act like something at least resembling real people. They do this with Academy Award nominated sets, music and costumes. In addition, the script is peppered with topical references like J. Edgar Hoover and Amos n' Andy. Also, it helps that the men in this movie have families, thoughts and emotions.
The genius of The Untouchables is how, as Pauline Kael said in her review, the movie makes no real effort to accurately portray the 1930's but presents it as closely as the average person thinks the 1930's must have been like. Sure, Eliot Ness and Al Capone were real people and Prohibition really happened but, deep down inside, The Untouchables cares as about much about America in the 1930's as Predator does.
The movie manages to please two audiences at the same time. The action/adventure crowd will like the tough-guy dialogue, fisticuffs, frequent gunplay and unsparing blood spurts. The adult drama crowd will like the sets, Connery's performance, the atmosphere and the pseudo-historicity. Both will dig the cool cars.
Movie Review: Rare Kevin Costner
Summary: 4 Stars
Kevin Costner was a different actor in this piece. Well written and well acted.Movie Review: Bigotry and nationality sterotyping abound in this overblown
Summary: 1 Stars
supposed saga regarding the "gansters" in old Chicago. It looked to me as if the criminals and the "good guys" were just about the same. For the corruption in the police force and the most pure "Eliot Ness" looked like it ran about neck and neck with the supposed "gangsters". Of course the added racial slurs thrown in by the most high Sean Connery another overrated "actor". Just terrible, don't bother with this one.Movie Review: Details of the Blu-ray Special Collector's Edition being rereleased June 3rd, 2008
Summary: 4 Stars
The Blu-ray release of this movie has been unavailable for a while, but it's being rereleased. It appears to be exactly the same product, with the same special features and specs as before. No HD sound is listed in the announced specs, but it wasn't in the specs announced for the first Blu-ray release either, and was there anyway.
The Untouchables is a pure Hollywood spin on the true-life "Untouchables" led by Eliot Ness against Al Capone in the 1930s. Unlike anything in the real events or the TV series, in the movie, we're invited to approve Ness's progression from straight arrow to lawbreaker and (legally speaking) murderer, all for a cause we're invited to see as ultimately pointless (Prohibition, which really was pointless in that it utterly failed, that much is true).
Despite that gloomy angle, and some other gloomy or even silly made-up points I won't mention to avoid spoilers, the movie works very well as a beautifully produced, intensely presented cops and robbers tale in which good more or less triumphs over evil. In a nutshell, Ness (Kevin Costner) is charged with shutting down the organized crime that has grown up in response to Prohibition in Chicago. The corruption he faces runs through all levels of City Hall and the police. Sean Connery is especially good as the veteran incorruptible if not rule-bound cop who becomes Ness's right-hand man and advisor. They put together a small team of trustworthy souls who risk all to defend the right. Chief nemesis Capone is played by a somewhat "hammy" Robert DeNiro, who put on weight for the role and used a fat suit. (For a handy summary of the differences between the real events and the film (if that matters to you), see the Wikipedia article on the movie.)
The special features, same as before, are:
-- "The Script, The Cast" featurette (18:31)
-- "Production Stories" featurette (17:18)
-- "Reinventing the Genre" featurette (14:23)
-- "The Classic" featurette (5:39)
-- "The Men" featurette (5:26)
-- theatrical trailer in hi-def
The special features include some interesting points, not great but worth watching for fans. Still no commentaries.
The announced specs: 2.35:1 widescreen transfer (1080p), Dolby Digital 5.1 EX, DTS-ES 6.1, subtitles in English, French and Spanish. Again, there is probably an HD sound option too, which in the previous release was English DTS-HD High Resolution 6.1 Matrixed Surround (1.5mpbs).
I haven't seen the Blu-ray version yet, but the image quality is widely reported to be very good, better than the standard DVD, with good detail and color, though some say there are artifacts visible from digital sharpening (and others deny it). The sound is also reportedly very good, clear, with the surround mix fairly good, given when the film was made (before the heyday of surround sound).
The rerelease was originally announced for May 20th, 2008, but appears to been postponed.