This re-make of the 1932 Howard Hawks classic has up-and-coming gangster Tony Montana (Al Pacino) arriving in Miami as a Cuban refugee. With his friend Manny (Stephen Bauer), Tony carries out a hit on a politician, earning him the gratitude of drug dealer Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia). Tony rises rapidly in the organization, but courts disaster when he becomes involved with Lopez cocaine-addicted wife, Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer).
Brian De Palmas update of the classic 1932 crime drama by Howard Hawks, Scarface is a sprawling epic of bloodshed and excess that sparked controversy over its outrageous violence when released in 1983. Its a wretched, fascinating car wreck of a movie, starring Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee who rises to the top of Miamis cocaine-driven underworld, only to fall hard into his own deadly trap of addiction and inevitable assassination. Scripted by Oliver Stone and running nearly three hours, its the kind of film that can simultaneously disgust and amaze you (critic Pauline Kael wrote "this may be the only action picture that turns into an allegory of impotence"), with vivid supporting roles for Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Robert Loggia. --Jeff Shannon