Scarface
do i think he died at the end? no. he can just take all those bullets.
what a fucking movie. genuinely, i don’t even know how to put this into words. you can’t write a book about this movie because the movie itself already feels bigger than words. people say a picture is worth a thousand words, but this felt worth a thousand paintings. that’s what scarface is to me. first of all the color. the color everywhere is unbelievably beautiful. i’m not even exaggerating when i say i don’t think i’ve seen color grading or even choices of color like this in any movie ever. i can think of a lot of michael mann movies with amazing lighting and beautiful blues and gorgeous cinematography, but not like this. this felt unprecedented. and then the script… so quotable, so iconic. “say hello to my little friend.” the whole dinner table monologue too, “you’re all a bunch of fucking assholes. you know why? you don’t even have the guts to be what you wanna be. you need people like me. you need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers and say, that’s the bad guy.” i know that speech from outside the movie too, and that alone says everything about how generational this is. there’s literally a drake song that starts like that. i see this movie all over hip hop. chief keef has tony montana flow, future has tony montana, eminem said this is his favourite movie, and there’s that lil baby ft dababy song called baby where the whole video brings back that first deal in the movie with the chainsaw and everything. that’s how iconic this is. this is a piece of art, like the mona lisa of this whole type of thing.
and yeah, there were a couple of hiccups. i think this might just be brian de palma because i watched the Untouchables yesterday and it had the exact same issue. it gets too dramatic at points, almost a bit foolish, a bit goofy, and i don’t like that in gangster movies. the difference is that Scarface somehow doesn’t come off goofy, it just feels over the top. and yes, i know the whole lifestyle is over the top, so it fits more here, but there were still a few moments where something felt slightly off. i don’t even want to say the ending because i love tony montana so much that i wish he didn’t die, but at the same time the ending fits perfectly. the consequences of his actions make complete sense. another thing i didn’t love was that jump in his rise where they kind of fast-forward through a whole part of it with music in the background. i get why they did it, but i wanted more. three hours was not enough for me. weirdly enough, i actually think this could’ve been two movies, like KillBill 1 and 2, released very close to each other. then again, i also kind of love that it’s just one standalone monster of a film. and tbf, it still gives you everything. you really do see tony montana from birth to death, from nothing to everything to nothing again. the full character development is there, and it’s unbelievably good. greed, depression, ego, control freak tendencies, all of it comes full circle.
that’s what makes it so special. it isn’t just stylish, even though the style is insane. the suits, the watches, the house, my god the house, all of it is unforgettable. i’d call the whole thing gritty extravagation or something like that. that’s the best way i can describe it. i would absolutely watch this again, but funny enough i don’t think it has huge replay value for me personally. i’d rather show it to izzy or to my dad, who i’m sure has probably seen it a hundred times already. it feels like a gold timepiece.