Start the week with a film: ‘Scarface’ and the secret of its excess
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After months of delays, Geetu Mohandas’s Toxic swaggered into cinemas last week, promising to re-examine its lead actor Yash’s hyper-macho image. While Toxic fired many blanks, the film’s over-the-top tone brought to mind another, much more successful attempt at using excess to depict excess: Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983).
Based on both the 1930 novel of the same name as well as Howard Hawks’s adaptation with Paul Muni from 1932, De Palma’s Scarface has many imitators but few rivals. Endlessly quoted and referenced in both Hollywood and Bollywood, Scarface is the kind of movie that several directors try but few actually get.
Oliver Stone’s excellent screenplay sets the rise and fall of Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Miami against American tensions with Cuba, the rising popularity of cocaine, 1980s bling and Giorgio Moroder’s synth-heavy score. Tony is a Cuban crook who gets entry into the United States by claiming to be a political refugee. Bursting with ruthlessness and chutzpah, Tony quickly rises up the ranks of Miami drug dealer Frank’s gang.
Tony also wants Frank’s slinky wife Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer) all for himself. Is it love or rivalry? While there...