(Blow Out, Body Double, Bonfire of the Vanities, Carlito's Way, Carrie, Casualties of War, Dressed To Kill, The Fury, Mission: Impossible, Mission To Mars, Raising Cain, Scarface, Snake Eyes, The Untouchables)
Producer:
Art Linson
Screenplay:
David Mamet
Music:
Ennio Morricone
Cast:
Eliot Ness: Kevin Costner
Jim Malone: Sean Connery
Al Capone: Robert De Niro
Oscar Wallace: Charles Martin Smith
Guiseppe Petri: Andy Garcia
In The Untouchables, it's 1930 and prohibition is in force.
Illegal booze and mucho violence are all the rage, but of course it can't be
anything to do with Al Capone (Robert De Niro) because he denies any kind
of wrong-doing(!) Federal agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is the man
determined to put a stop to it all, with the help of cop Jim Malone (Sean
Connery).
This is a film that needs little explanation because most people with an
interest in the characters will already have seen it, but here De Niro smarms
his way through his big baddie role, Costner is his usual wimpy self trying to
be macho and hard and Sean Connery is... Sean Connery, as always. Of course,
good will out in the end anyway.
The thumping opening music from Ennio Morricone's score, the train
station shoot-out aped in
Naked Gun 33.3
and lifted from The Battleship Potemkin and the murder of Connery's
character when he seems to have more lives than not only a cat but also
Bond's aide Felix Leiter, are three moments sure to remind you of when you
last saw this hugely-entertaining movie.
And Andy Garcia was left holding the baby.
Shown in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, it's the only way to
view any of De Palma's Panavision presentations. The only downside is that
it looks just a little soft throughout, although this was probably done to
evoke the period of the piece. There's also a few print scratches, but
nothing major to complain about.
The average bitrate is 6.90Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 8Mb/s.
The soundtrack is a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 for English dialogue (Germans
get surround-only) and any gunfights or action revel in the multi-speaker
setup.
There are 24 chapters which is a decent amount, but the only extra is
2½-minute 16:9 anamorphic trailer and the menus are silent and static.
Subtitles are available in 15 languages ;
English (and hard of hearing), Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish,
German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish and Turkish.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
