This Owl remembered a part of the movie yesterday ‘Scarface‘ (1983) where the gangster refuses to kill children and signs his death sentence before a Bolivian boss. Those scourges that riddled an entire family in San Miguel have no forgiveness. Al Pacino was the one who masterfully embodied Anthony “Tony” Montana a Cuban criminal and homicidal who escapes from the island’s regime along with thousands of his compatriots on rafts and boats from the port of Mariel.
LOOK: Crime without forgiveness
In Miami he is confined together with his friend Manny Rivera (Steven Bauer) in a provisional prison. Tony wants to become rich in America, but he fears that because of his background, they will send him back to the island. To his ‘good luck’, Manny tells him that a rich man from Miami wants him to do a little job: A former head of the communist regime who fought with Castro and has deported him is going to arrive as a refugee, and he must assassinate Emilio Rebenga, who killed the brother of that rich guy on the island. Tony replies: ‘If I have to kill a communist, I’ll even do it for free.’
During a riot in the refugee camp, Montana stabbed Rebenga to death and he and his group obtained the long-awaited residence card. Thus begins a rise in the prosperous business of drug trafficking in Miami. He works in the employ of city boss Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia, in a big role), whose wife is Elvira Hancock (enigmatic and highly desirable Michelle Pfeiffer). Loyalty, betrayal and ambition surround a violent character, who experiences the conflict of being despised by his mother, who considers him “a shame” for the honest Cubans in Miami and rejects his dirty money, while he is dazzled and jealous of his beautiful sister Gina (unforgettable Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio).
Tony confronts his boss Frank, who tried to kill him. ‘You don’t have balls, Frank!’ He yells at him while his ex-boss pleads for his life: ‘Tony, don’t kill me. I have ten million in Spain, they are yours. Elvira… stay with my wife. I’ll disappear,’ he begs, Frank cries, as Tony orders Manny, ‘Kill this cockroach.’ With this, Tony manages to reach the top. Few know that De Palma and screenwriter Oliver Stone, before ‘Platoon’ (1986), got into a fight during the film.
De Palma demanded bombast, delirious scenes
While Oliver was careful to portray sociopolitical conflicts with great care. Pseudo-leftist critics and anti-Castro Cubans demolished the film, despite the fact that it was a box office success. Montana was a murderer, but he refused to kill children and was sentenced to death by the Bolivian mafia in an epic combat between the mobster and dozens of hit men. De Palma was a visionary. Years before the appearance of Pablo Escobar, Tony Montana already had a mansion with a zoo inside, with tigers, crocodiles and elephants.
The scene where Montana plunges his nose into a hill of cocaine became one of the ten most remembered gangster scenes. The film’s excessive dose of violence was criticized, but a few years later Quentin Tarantino would use much more blood in ‘Reservoir dogs’ and ‘Pulp fiction’ and won the Cannes Film Festival. A few decades have passed and today ‘Scarface’ is a cult film. Memorable is the scene where Tony is wide-eyed, on the balcony of his house, with a machine gun in hand, receiving dozens of bullets and yelling at the hit men ‘Say hello to my little friend’ (‘Say hello to my little friend, ha ha ha), while a hot air balloon anchored in the mansion read ‘the world is yours’. ‘Scarface’, a classic that was ahead of its time. I turn off the TV.
