It's not the best movie ever made but certainly not the worst. I thought it was a good 7/10 overall. Why are people acting like this movie is a 3/10? I don't understand their anger towards the film.
"Having sex with a pregnant woman is like putting gas in a car you just wrecked." - Jefferson
I think part of it is because it's easy to target Kevin Costner, who many people don't think is a great actor, which I think is a totally BS excuse to dislike the movie. If you're going to have a tale of pure good versus pure evil, I can't think of anyone more suited to the role of "pure good" than Kevin Costner! The man is the embodiment of it in most of the roles he plays. I think it's perfect casting. And frankly, especially at a time when this movie came out, Costner was mostly unknown, or at least not the star he became soon after, which is a huge reason this movie works. A big star would have undercut everything, tried to steal and chew the scenery, and been hard to root for. While Connery and DeNiro got to be larger than life and bombastic, Costner complemented that with subtlety and humanity and him being a NOOB makes it all the more satisfying and compelling in the end.
I've seen people like certiain questionable films JUST BECAUSE it had big stars in it, and I actually think those big names totally undercut the film, for example, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in Heat. I think they were both miscast in those roles, but I believe that movie gets a high rating mostly based on their names. I'd bet if it were 2 other actors, that movie wouldn't be nearly as revered as it is.
It's an entertaining enough movie, but I think people were expecting something deeper with more realism and intelligence especially given the serious nature of the subject matter.
It starts off very dark with the little girl and the bomb but then seems to turn into a semi-comedy and alternates between comedic scenes and darker issues.
Given the top actors in this movie and the fascinating story of Al Capone, I think people were expecting something more meatier.
We aren't really given very good reasons why the characters act the way they do. Why is Ness so anti--alcohol, why does Connery's cop change his mind after admitting he is too old and tired and just wants peace in his life, why are Ness's men so eager to really put their lives on the line for what most people consider to be a national past-time?
The movie can't seem to decide if it wants to be drama or comedy, serious subject matter or light hearted fluff, so it mixes all these things together with unsatisfying results.
Because as it's been pointed out in other threads, it's a very bad movie. Cartoonish, tries to be funny, full of clichés, and it hasn't aged well at all.
I tried watching it last night for the 1st time ever, could only take an hour of it before turning it off. I can't believe Sean Connery got an Oscar for this, can't fathom how is this considered an epic movie. Gave 1/10.
I think people must just not like this because they don't like De Palma. If you like him you should like the movie seeing as how it's way better than almost everything else he's made.
shareConnery got the Oscar for past performance of playing James Bond.
shareI love it personally, but I also watched it for the first time in 1989.
I think most of the commenters here are quite young and have sort of a philistine attitude to anything made before, say the '90s.
I'm the same with anything made before 1975. It's not that I can't see the good in them, it's just that those same ideas have been recycled repeatedly in modern day movies that I don't instantly realize the origin. I guess that's just the way it goes. 30 years from today, there'll be a bunch of kids hating on 20th century classics like Lord Of The Rings, Inception or Gladiator.
I think The Untouchables is a great movie (8/10 from me), and I think the reason a lot of people don't like it is because of its pulpy, heightened style. This is not how the downfall of Al Capone looked like, but rather how it, from a storytelling point-of-view, should've looked like. I wonder if some viewers expected a semi-docudrama on the fall of Capone, rather than this stylized depiction of the events. Is the film a little corny? Maybe, but I think it may have been a bit intentional, considering it might've been made to resemble an old-fashioned good-versus-evil fable (although there is some moral ambiguity in it).
Well, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.