Scarface: A Comparitive Review

Say what you will about the subjective quality of the 1983 version of Scarface -- some consider it a modern-day classic and others dismiss it as a live-action cartoon, an unintentional self-parody -- but whether you love it or loathe it, no one can accuse the film of subtlety. Considering the facts that the director is Brian DePalma (who once reported "guignol" to be his favorite word), the scriptwriter is Oliver Stone (who makes no compunctions about his tendency to hit his audiences over the head with his messages), and the concept of excess is so central to many of the film's themes -- excessive ambition, excessive greed, excessive materialism, excessive violence, etc. -- subtlety in presentation would probably be an inappropriate expectation, to say the least.

The film is such a loose remake of the 1932 movie of the same name that one should hesitate to refer to it as a remake at all; the modern term "re-imagining," albeit loosely defined, might be a word that better describes the '83 film, in its relation to the earlier movie.

Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, initially just one anonymous face in the wave of Cuban refugees that came to Miami in 1980. Montana refers to himself -- and possibly even considers himself -- a "political refugee," although in truth he is just a petty criminal whose search for a new start in the U.S. is as much about escaping from his criminal past as it is about pursuing the American Dream.

Scarface follows Montana's rapid rise from errand boy for drug kingpin Frank Lopez (a fun performance from Robert Loggia) to a coveted spot in Frank's inner circle, to his rivalry with and eventual replacement of Frank as the number one man in Miami's cocaine trade. We see Montana rise from a nobody to a multi-billionaire, and while more than one person eventually observes that success has gone to Montana's head, his real problem is that success hasn't changed him at all; the crudity, cruelty, greed, paranoia, and other vices that Montana the Millionaire exhibits have been character traits of his all along, and until he finally crosses the wrong people once too often, these vices actually serve him quite well.

In the broadest strokes imaginable, the plot echoes that of the 1932 original, although the shift in focus from 30s Chicago prohibition-busting to 80s Miami cocaine dealing radically alters the story details even more than you might imagine.

As Tony Camonte, the protagonist of the '32 film, Paul Muni delivered a broad performance which seemed even broader in contrast to restrained performances of his co-stars; note how the other men in the 1932 film rarely even move their arms from their sides, an exercise in formal restraint which serves to emphasize Camonte's informal attitude and physical looseness. The supporting actors in the 1983 version don't follow their predecessors' example (and good thing too, especially in the case of the delightful Loggia) so to compensate for this, Pacino goes over the top. It's an appropriate choice, considering the over-all style of the film, but one can easily see how the performance lends itself to parody.

Although the plots of the two films are different enough that directly mirrored scenes are few and far between, there are two examples that illustrate both the positive and the negative of the lack of subtlety:

Both films have a story point about Tony's boss deciding to order a hit on Tony because he rightfully fears that Tony's ambition and fearlessness are a threat to his own power. The '32 film has a great moment when Camonte confronts Johnny Lovo. Johnny initially tries to act innocent, but when he realizes that Camonte ain't buyin' his act, he switches gears and begs for mercy.

"I never hurt anybody!" Johnny whines in his defense.

"No," Camonte agrees. "You send other people to do it for you."

With that, he walks out the door, leaving his sidekick alone in the room with Johnny. The look on Johnny's face tells us that he knows what we do, that Camonte will let his men do the dirty work, but either way, Johnny's days are over. This is arguably the most powerful moment in the film.

An almost -- emphasis on "almost" -- identical scene appears in the 1983 version, although the differences show that the excess of DePalma and Stone illustrate a lack of sophistication:

"I never hurt anybody!" Frank Lopez pleads.

"No," Montana agrees. "You send other people to do it for you."

Same great look of realization on Robert Loggia's face. But then Montana proceeds to boast and strut and curse and shout, and by the time he tells his sidekick to "shoot this fuck," all the grace of the scene has evaporated, and even if that's sort of the point, by this time, we've been so distracted by Montana's bombastic behavior that we barely remember the set-up, and wonder why Montana doesn't take the kill shot himself. DePalma and Stone may have their own legitimate styles, but the bumbling of this scene made me miss their predecessors in Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht.

However, both movies share one subplot that cried out for a lack of subtlety, and despite the '32 film's pre-code status, Hawks and Hecht oddly shied away from the incestuous feelings Camonte feels toward his sister. Interestingly, while watching the Hawks/ Hecht Scarface, I fully expected to see Gina eventually confront Camonte with a sexual advance and the line, "is this what you want, Tony?" This scene appears exactly as I'd imagined it, but only in the DePalma/ Stone version, which I knew very little about and had never even seen before until after watching the '32 film. It's as if DePalma and Stone watched the original movie and said, "oh, okay, we see where they're going with this, let's take it to where they wanted to go, but didn't quite dare to."

It's that fearless attitude that saves the '83 film from its own miscalls, and makes it a movie at least as good as, if not better, than the original.