MovieChat Forums > The Untouchables (1987) Discussion > Written by David Mamet?

Written by David Mamet?

posted 11 years ago by Johnny_Hancock
6 replies | jump to latest

A mob movie written by David Mamet featuring Robert De Niro as Al Capone, with an 8.0 IMDb rating and 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. I was really looking forward to watching The Untouchables, but it failed to meet my expectations worse than any other movie I've watched in the last few years.

I think anybody who is familiar with Mamet (and did not look at the credits or have internet access) would have a hard time believing he wrote this script. As Roger Ebert wrote:

The script is by David Mamet, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, but it could have been by anybody. It doesn't have the Mamet touch, the conversational rhythms that carry a meaning beyond words. It also lacks any particular point of view about the material and, in fact, lacks the dynamic tension of many gangster movies written by less talented writers. Everything seems cut and dried, twice-told, preordained.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-untouchables-1987

And that is not the only thing wrong with this movie. Ebert's entire review is spot on.

[–] starmarker 11 years ago

When I think of Mamet's style, I think of something like Glengary Glenross. And I'm not sure that would have worked for this movie. So maybe, in a movie that has lots of other problems with it, the lack of Mamet's signature-style dialogue is a small mercy! Sometimes Mamet's dialogue style (really calls attention to itself- Tarantino is like that too) can be annoying and too obtrusive.

[–] dyahrmarkt 11 years ago

read you loud and clear, OP. You hire Mamet for Mamet. He'd be the last guy I'd ever guess wrote this script if I didn't know already. Ebert was 100% accurate there in his review.

Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -

[–] wwestar 11 years ago

Mamet writes scripts for money. He was hired because he was a close friend of the producer. Mamet has no interest writing film scripts...except when he's short of cash.

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[–] ecarle 10 years ago

But many of the lines were classic Mamet:

"Carry a badge? Carry a gun."

"If you want to open the ball on Capone, you've got to be prepared to go all the way. They bring a knife to the fight, you bring a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That's the Chicago way."

"Who would say that he was a federal officer...who was not?"

"I have become what I beheld."

"How do you think he feels? Better...or worse?"

"Aw, hell...you're all gonna die of something."

"Touchable."

"At an all out prize fight at the end, one man's up, one man's down. THAT's how you know who won."

"What are you prepared to do?"

"Here endeth the lesson."

RIP Roger Ebert...but he was wrong a lot of the time. And not too hot on screenwriting. And as one famous screenwriter noted, Ebert was famous in Hollywood for writing "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and not selling any other scripts.