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The Untouchables is a 1987 film, directed by Brian De Palma, based on the 1959 ABC television series. It was adapted by David Mamet, and stars Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, Sean Connery as Irish-American beat cop James Malone, and Robert de Niro as Al Capone. Sean Connery received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film. The film became a solid hit, grossing over $76 million dollars domestically.
The film, like the television series, exaggerates the role Ness and his men played in the capture of Al Capone (most notably his involvement in Capone's trial and eventual conviction on tax evasion charges).
Synopsis
At the beginning of the movie, Capone tries to portray himself as a nice man who is simply giving the thirsty people of Chicago what they want. He even says to a reporter "There is violence in Chicago, but not by me and not by anybody I employ. You know why? Because it's not good business." But Capone actually supplied poor quality liquor at high prices, and backed up his business with hired guns. As Capone is being interviewed, a ten-year-old girl in another part of the city is killed by a bomb, planted in a cafe that had refused to buy Capone's alcohol.
Treasury Department agent Eliot Ness is put in charge of leading the crusade against Capone and his empire. His first lead is a warehouse suspected of carrying crates of Canadian whiskey; however when Ness raids the warehouse, he finds that the crates are full of Japanese umbrellas. A photographer snaps a picture of the embarrassing moment, turning Ness into a laughing stock in the newspaper.
Frustrated by his failure caused by the treachery of members of the police force he is assigned to lead, Ness encounters a veteran beat cop named Jim Malone, untouched by Capones's pay-offs. Malone reluctantly joins Ness and becomes his mentor, teaching him never to trust anyone in the corrupt police department. He tells Ness that he knows where to find the honest men who are just as determined to see Capone put out of business. That is, the recruits at the academy (Malone gave the analogy of avoiding rotten apples in the barrel by picking them off the tree). After being assigned an accountant officer named Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) and hiring an Italian sharpshooter named George Stone, né Giuseppe Petri (Andy Garcia), straight from the academy, Ness has a team he believes can combat Capone without fear of betrayal.
Their first raid takes place in a post office, the storeroom of which is being used to store crates of illegal liquor. Ness is initially doubtful and alarmed that liquor would be in a building administered by a public office, but Malone simply storms in and takes the place by force. They invade the post office and nab all the workers without a single man injured (except for the overseer that Malone scuffed up).
Ness soon becomes a formidable opponent to Capone's empire, arousing the mob boss's concern. At first, Capone attempts to bribe Ness through a local alderman, but Ness quickly establishes that he and his men will not be touched by cozy offers. After receiving a death threat from Capone's hitman Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) outside his home, Ness sends his wife and two children into hiding while he and the Untouchables continue the battle against Capone.
The team's greatest success comes when they intercept a shipment of liquor being smuggled across the U.S.-Canadian border. They also capture Capone's bagman George, who can testify against Capone and have him put away for 28 years thanks to Oscar's detection of Capone's failure to pay any taxes to the government for years. If George will verify in court that the coded ledgers provide evidence that Capone maintains an income without paying any taxes, then the infamous Mafia kingpin could be put away for a much simpler charge.
An enraged Capone realizes he has no choice but to have his bagman, George, killed, a task he leaves to Nitti. Disguised as an elevator operator at the police station, Nitti kills both George and Oscar Wallace, scrawling 'Touchable' on the wall in blood. With George dead, Ness thinks the case against Capone is lost, because the district attorney will not prosecute Capone without a witness. Malone convinces Ness to stall the D.A. from dropping the case and thinks that the corrupt police chief, an old friend of Malone's, knows where the next best witness is.
The other witness is Capone's bookkeeper Walter Payne. Capone plans on keeping Payne out of Ness's hands, and assigns his sideman Bowtie the task of escorting Payne out of Chicago. After a violent fistfight, the corrupt police chief tells Malone that he knows where Payne is. Capone is determined to silence the Untouchables once and for all, and orders Malone killed. Nitti machine-guns Malone in his home. Ness and Stone arrive in time to find Malone mortally wounded and near death. Malone manages to give Ness the piece of paper that gives the time and train on which Payne is travelling to Florida. He demands of Ness "What are you prepared to do?" before he dies.
Ness and Stone find Payne at Chicago's Union Station, and also encounter several armed Capone hoods. A shootout occurs in which several innocent bystanders are injured, and all the Capone hoods are killed. This was one of the most dramatic scenes, where a mother loses her pram with her baby and it tumbles down stairs; Stone manages to throw himself in front of the pram just in time, as well as getting into position to shoot the hood who is holding Payne hostage. Much of this sequence, including the pram, was inspired by the "Odessa Steps sequence" of the Soviet movie Battleship Potemkin.
Capone is finally brought to trial. During the trial, Ness recognizes Nitti and notices that he is carrying a gun in court. He orders the bailiff to take him outside. Nitti empties the contents of his pockets onto a table. Ness takes Nitti's matchbook when he wants to light a cigarette, but when he lights the match he sees Malone's address written on the inside of the matchbook. Ness realizes that he is confronting his mentor's murderer.
Nitti pulls his gun, shooting and wounding the bailiff. Ness pursues Nitti to the roof of the court building. Foolishly, Nitti attempts to escape by using a rope and tackle to climb down the side of the court building. The rope isn't long enough to get him to the street, and Nitti winds up taunting Ness to save him. Ness originally considers shooting Nitti to avenge Malone's murder, but common sense prevails and he pulls the hitman up.
Once safe again, the oversure Nitti makes a smirking remark that Malone "died screaming like a stuck Irish pig," confident that he will "beat the rap" on the murder charges thanks to his affiliation with Capone. An enraged Ness seizes Nitti and throws him off the court building roof to his death.
Stone finds a piece of paper in Nitti's coat that lists the names of the jurors. It turns out they've all been bribed. At first, the judge refuses to do anything. Behind closed doors, Ness tells the judge that the judge's name is also listed in the payroll evidence from the border case. Ness' claim is untrue, but he has correctly guessed that the judge's refusal to act on the evidence of bribery is because the judge was in fact on Capone's payroll. Falling for Ness' bluff, the judge orders Capone's jury switched with another one that has been hearing a divorce trial. Capone's lawyer, realizing the loss of their advantage, asks to change his client's plea to 'guilty'. Capone furiously attacks his lawyer, but is restrained. Ness taunts Capone with a quote he originally had thrown in his face after trying to confront the mob boss in his hotel suite.
Later, as Ness packs up his Chicago office, he sees the Saint Jude pendant that Malone had carried with him for many years. Shaking hands with Stone, Ness disagrees when Stone says that Ness should be the one to keep it, that Malone would've wanted his pupil to have it. "He would have wanted a cop to have it," Ness insists, because Jude is the patron saint of cops. Out on the street, a reporter wishes to have a word from the man who put Capone away, but Ness merely remarks he was just there "when the wheel went 'round." When the reporter mentions that Prohibition is due to be repealed, he asks what Ness might do then? "I think I'll have a drink."
Box Office
- Opening weekend U.S. gross: $10,023,094
- Total U.S. box office gross: $76,270,454
Behind-the-scenes
The Untouchables was filmed in Chicago, Illinois; Hardin, Montana; and the surrounding areas of Great Falls, Montana.
Trivia
- Producer Art Linson loved the first draft of David Mamet's screenplay, but asked if they could have more Capone. Mamet responded by writing the infamous baseball bat scene, which is based upon an actual Capone act.
- The movie has many fictions in it, of course, perhaps the most notable being the death of Nitti by falling from the courthouse roof. Frank Nitti actually took his own life in 1943.
- Robert DeNiro, whom director Brian de Palma had worked with in the film Greetings, was the first choice to play Al Capone. When DeNiro turned him down, de Palma cast a reasonable second-choice, British actor Bob Hoskins. However, de Palma and producer Art Linson were determined to get DeNiro, and when he agreed after all, Hoskins was released from his contract. Later, Hoskins received a check through the mail for $200,000. He rang de Palma up and asked if he had “any other films you don't want me to appear in.”
- The shoot-out at the train station is heavily inspired by the "Odessa Steps sequence" from Battleship Potemkin. It features all five forms of montage: Metric; Rhythmic; Tonal; Overtonal; and Intellectual
Academy Awards
1987 films | Chicago films | Crime films | Films based on television series | Films directed by Brian De Palma | Mafia movies | Paramount films
Die Unbestechlichen (1987) | The Untouchables | Les Incorruptibles (film, 1987) | Gli Intoccabili | アンタッチャブル (映画) | De ubestikkelige | The Untouchables | Неприкасаемые (фильм)
"The Untouchables (1987 film)"