Scarface DVD

 One of the best movies ever!
This is Al Pacino best hit movie ever. It is amazing to see what they went through in and how they become, then how they end up in the end... What else can I say, this movie is truly known!!!!
Submitted by greenhazelcateyes1 (Chicago, IL)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No  1 of 1 found this helpful.

 A MODERN CLASSIC....AN EPIC STORY... A MUST BUY
What can you say about SCARFACE that hasn't already been said? It's a modern classic; an epic story grounded in a gripping, personal morality tale. The performances are all top notch, DePalma’s direction incredibly solid; even Oliver Stone is at his written best. Yes, the film is annoyingly heralded upon by every rapper as the end all be all of cinema, but don’t let that taint your perception—this movie has a lot more to offer than drugs, violence and bling. Stone’s script is a traditional story of the ill effects of greed and power, but at the same time it also dismantles and scrutinizes what that means for the American Dream in the excess of modern culture. As overzealous and oblivious as he is, Pacino’s Tony Montana embodies the very id of the prototypical “you can be anything” immigrant ideal that the United States came to represent. (“The World Is Yours”…not too subtle.) When the main character chooses a life of corruption instead of washing dishes for minimum wage, it’s the American Dream on crack (literally)—determination can get you an honest day’s pay or a drug empire. With all this weight on his shoulders, Al Pacino is a force of nature in SCARFACE and completely disappears within Tony Montana (purportedly his favorite role). This is Pacino at the level of DOG DAY AFTERNOON, not so much the “HooAH!” caricature he’s become in recent years. It’s a complete travesty that the man wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar that year. Same goes for Brian De Palma; while not his most visibly stylized film, his direction here is confident but not overdone. There are some great shots (nobody moves a camera like De Palma), but even these don’t draw attention to themselves. Instead, De Palma lets the performances and the perfectly gaudy 80’s atmosphere take control of the film. It still puzzles me why the rap community latched on to this movie in particular. Sure, Tony Montana goes from having nothing to having everything, and he is an undeniable badass throughout the film, but do they see anything past the man’s crib and his “little friend”? At no point does SCARFACE glorify violence or Montana’s lifestyle. The entire last act is pretty much confirmation of that fact. He does have some moral ground, but the character is still more fascinating to watch then he is likable. Hopefully someday someone will sit Scarface the rapper down and explain to him the irony of adopting the “The World Is Yours” attitude and ignoring everything else SCARFACE has to say. Any fan of crime movies should have SCARFACE in a highly esteemed place in their collection. Last year when IGN compiled its list of the Top 25 Crime Movies of All Time, a fierce debate raged among several staffers which version of Scarface should make that list: the 1932 Howard Hawks version starring Paul Muni or the 1983 Brian De Palma version starring Al Pacino. Ultimately, De Palma and Pacino won, if for no other reason than the newer film's established place in the canon of all-time greatest gangster movies. But whether you're a die-hard classicist or just clamor for Cuban accents, almost everyone will agree that both are deserving of their respective places in cinema history; and as the recently-released Scarface (Platinum Edition) reveals, sometimes words like 'better' or 'bigger' really only matter in the context of box office receipts. Like a number of recently-released double dips, including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings films, just about everything in Scarface has been discussed to death: De Palma's sensational (and sensationalistic) visual approach, Pacino's scenery-chewing, and screenwriter Oliver Stone's cocaine-fueled political undertones. In fact, the enduring appeal of the film was perhaps best chronicled on the previous DVD release, which featured a documentary about the film's indelible connection to hip-hop mythology entitled "The Origins Of A Gangsta." That featurette filtered the film through the language of rap music and its historic iconography of self-created heroes (and more often, anti-heroes); but what it also did was show just how the film penetrated popular culture - so deeply, in fact, that a character almost universally regarded as homicidal and irredeemable has become a sort of embodiment of the American dream. That is a direct result of the combined efforts of Stone, De Palma, and especially Pacino; while the actor by his own admission intentionally created only a two-dimensional character, Stone helped render a traditional gangster story in equally political and visceral terms, while De Palma elevated the synthetic landscape of 1980s cinema to the stuff of epic proportions. So you can look at it as an exercise in style, a showcase for an actor's descent into madness (if not self-parody), or a chronicle of a violent and troubled time in recent history. But no matter which approach appeals to you, you will look at it: Hawks and Muni may have cemented the status of the gangster movie back in 1932, but De Palma and Pacino make that genre the stuff of myth and legend. And whether you're visiting it for the first time in 2006 or the fortieth, the 1983 Scarface retains its ferocious and unflinching edge today in a way that its predecessor does not - which is perhaps why it endures so well 23 years after its release, and again on DVD now for the third time.
Submitted by ella windsor (philadelphia pennsylvania usa)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No

 What Can You Say
Al Pacino is at his best
Submitted by Sicc_Made_Juggalo (Ft.C,CO)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No  1 of 1 found this helpful.
This review is for a different format.

 Scarface!
One of the best movies, ever created!
Submitted by Zach (Southbury, CT.) 
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No
This review is for a different format.

 Excellent!!!!!!!
i rate this a five stare choice!!! Any and every Scarface fan must own.One not to let get away!!!
Submitted by richard0485dominguez (Dallas,Tx USA) 
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No
This review is for a different format.

Have you seen this movie?