A review of The Untouchables Special Collectors Edition

Kevin Costner and Robert DeNiro square off as Elliot Ness and Al Capone in this classic mafia movie. It is during the Prohibition era, and running bootleg liquor kept gangsters in the green. Chicago is a city overrun by corruption, and Ness is brought in by the Treasury department to clean things up.

After a meeting with the officers and beat cops, Ness comes to realize that he will have to work harder than expected to succeed at bringing down the illegal operations of Al Capone. In Chicago, Al Capone ran the streets and if someone crossed his path, it would be call to that individual’s next-of-kin.

Ness discovers how corrupt the town really is when a bust goes bad, and he ends up with egg on his face. As he is wanders the late night streets with his tail tucked, it is a career beat-cop, played by Sean Connery, that makes him realize that he will have to play by a different set of rules if he wants to win against Capone.

Ness realizes the veteran cop is right, and with his help he recruits a small band of men to help him bring Capone down. The band of men becomes known as the Untouchables, and eventually they do bring down Capone for tax evasion, which is exactly how the bloodthirsty mobster was taken down in real life.

This is one of my favorite Mafia movies of all time. While I do not like most of Costner’s later work (mostly because he seems to play every role exactly the same – with the exception of A Perfect World), I did love his performance in this movie. I am a long-standing fan of Connery and DeNiro, and being a true crime buff, I was very pleased with DeNiro’s portrayal of Capone. The re-enactment of Capone killing someone with a baseball bat was based on a real incident, but they did allow for some artistic license in that I do not think Capone actually killed the man at the banquet table.

When the DVD initially came out, there was only one featurette in terms of extra materials, and it drove me crazy because I love that aspect of owning the DVD as much as the movie. With the release of this special edition, my appetite for more information was satisfied, because the DVD now offers four new featurettes and the theatrical trailer.

GRADE: A (movie) A (DVD)