Movie Monitor: Scarface

Scarface

1983 Crime Drama

Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, an exiled Cuban criminal who goes to work for Miami drug lord Robert Loggia. Montana rises to the top of Florida's crime chain, appropriating Loggia's cokehead mistress (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the process. Howard Hawks' "X Marks the Spot" motif in depicting the story line's many murders is dispensed with in the 1983 Scarface; instead, we are inundated with blood by the bucketful, especially in the now-infamous buzz saw scene. One carry-over from the original Scarface is Tony Montana's incestuous yearnings for his sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). The screenplay for the 1983 Scarface was written by Oliver Stone.

Director: Brian De Palma

Starring: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia

15 Reviews 4 Awards

Reviews

Scarface is one of those special movies, like "The Godfather," that is willing to take a flawed, evil man and allow him to be human.

Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

27 April 2013
A beautiful, at times poetic exercise in excess from Brian De Palma.

- TV Guide

27 April 2013
Perfomances are excellent, and despite its moralistic conclusion, the film has since become de rigueur viewing for crack barons, who know a good shoot-em-up when they see one.

- Empire

27 April 2013
Scarface is the most stylish and provocative - and maybe the most vicious - serious film about the American underworld since Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather."

Vincent Canby - The New York Times

27 April 2013
It is a serious, often hilarious peek under the rock where nightmares strut in $800 suits and Armageddon lies around the next twist of treason.

Richard Corliss - Time

27 April 2013

Awards

Best Original Score - Motion Picture

Golden Globes (1984)
Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects

Motion Picture Sound Editors (1984)
Worst Director

Razzie Awards (1984)
Best Classic DVD Release

Satellite Awards (2004)

Lists

No lists