Scarface (1983 movie)

Template:Infobox Movie Scarface is a 1983 motion picture about Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who has come to Florida in 1980 as a result of the Mariel Boatlift and entered into a life of organized crime and cocaine dealing. It is loosely based on a 1932 movie of the same name, (see Scarface (1932)). An upcoming video game which takes place in a 'what if' timeline that happens after the events of the movie will be released in 2006 for the PC, Xbox, Xbox 360, and Playstation 2.

Contents

1 Plot Summary

2 Analysis

2.1 Scarface and hip-hop
2.2 Profanity and violence

Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Tony Montana is one of "Los Bandidos" who in 1980 were sent from Cuba's prisons to Miami. Tony arrives in Cuba with, amongst others, his trusted sidekick, Manny. They are sprung from a detention camp for Cuban refugees because they carry out a hit for Frank Lopez, a Miami mobster. In return, they get their green cards. Tony and Manny begin life in Miami as dishwashers but are soon forcing their way into a life of crime. After a cocaine pickup goes bad, with the execution of Angel, one of Tony's lieutenants, Tony gains the respect of Lopez by offering him both the money and the drugs hard won from the pickup. Lopez takes Tony under his wing. After establishing himself as a player in the drugs scene, he makes contact with his hitherto lost family in Miami, his mother and kid sister Gina. Tony is not content to follow Frank and is soon cutting deals with Alejandro Sosa, a Bolivian cocaine producer with some heavy government connections. Tony eventually takes both Frank's business and Frank's woman, the cold yet vulnerable Elvira. Eventually Tony is busted for tax evasion after a money laundering sting and faces a jail sentence. Sosa offers Tony a way out jail in return for helping with the execution of a crusading Bolivian politician, a man who is beginning to threaten both Sosa and his influential network of friends. Tony is unable to go through with the hit against the Bolivian after finding that the man's wife and children will be killed alongside the target. Tony returns from the failed hit to confront Sosa. He then discovers that Gina and Manny have been having a relationship. Tony kills Manny only to discover that the couple were married the day before. Tony retreats to his guarded home and waits for Sosa's small army to take him and his empire down. Gina is gunned down whilst taunting Tony for his murder of her husband, Manny, and after defying many bullets, Tony is eventually killed.

Analysis

Tony arrives in Miami with nothing but the clothes on his back but he says he knows what he wants... "what's coming to me". Tony has no problem killing and in fact he regards it as fun. At the start of the movie, Tony is questioned by the US authorities and we see that he has a tattoo on his hand with the word 'Madre' (mother) inside a heart; this is a Cuban prison tattoo signifying the rank of executioner. He also shows no fear and enjoys confrontations of all kinds, always ready to take any situation to the next level. He refuses to bow to men who think themselves better than him and knows enough of the rules to know that there are no rules when it comes to reaching the top in the Miami underworld. As the movie carries on with the story of Tony's apparent success, Tony's humanity begins to emerge along with his loss of interest in the superficial trappings of that success. We find Tony is by the time of the restuarant scene a man lost. With his relationship with Elvira all but over, he looks round at the other diners in their own tuxedos and realises that acceptance is as far from him as it has always been. He will always be the bad man.

Although an adept operator in a treacherous world, Tony remains a truthful man. "All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don't break 'em for no one" is one of the most remarkable quotations of this film. And although a violent man, Tony believes his violence can always be justified. "I never fucked anybody over in my life, who didn't have it comin' to him."

Tony is also a man who commands love of the few people close to him. For Manny and Gina, Tony is a father figure and although the union seems political rather than romantic, Elvira does have some feeling for Tony, though this must be questioned given her vulnerability. However, Tony's greed makes him squander this love. He is denied and brutally mocked by the two women he cares about. First Elvira, who Tony has won from his one time boss Frank, denies him both the love and the son he craves and then, after Tony's slaying of Manny, Gina taunts Tony with her body. This last twisted act by Gina is, in a way, symbolic of Tony's futile quest for a son.

It is Tony's compassion that proves to be his downfall. We also see that Tony is ultimately a pawn chosen for his unique qualities but unaware that the empire that he has seemingly created from nothing was there before he arrived from Cuba and will be there after he has gone. Alejandro Sosa and his cabal of South American and Washington goverment figures are the real power brokers, although men like Tony prove useful to conceal their own hands. However, we see that Tony may have uwittingly won his fight with authority during the call to Sosa after New York, when we see Sosa's empire crumbling thanks to Tony's uncompromising compassion. At this point, though, this possible victory for Tony is meaningless to him. Salvation for Tony comes near the end when he realises that he has lost Manny and is at last released from the hate that has consumed him all his life. The grief that Tony feels while waiting to die is the most poignant emotion that Tony experiences during the movie.

Scarface and hip-hop

Scarface is also notable for its extensive popularity by many hip-hop artists and fans, in particular those affiliated with gangsta rap. A number of rappers single out Tony Montana as a role model for his transition from poverty to wealth and outsider status. Mafioso fashion became a prominent part of hip hop fashion, quotes from the film (often sampled lines of dialogue) are prominent in many hip-hop songs, and rapper Scarface named himself after the film and its protagonist. "Tony Montana is an ultimate gangsta", says Latino hip-hop musician Fat Joe. "It's like the code of the streets, man; everybody who thinks they gangsta or are gangsta live by that movie." See also: this interview (http://www.vh1.com/artists/interview/1478255/09162003/fat_joe.jhtml).

A number of hip-hop stars have featured Scarface memorabilia as being among their prized possessions when filmed for MTV's television show Cribs, and Universal Pictures, whose parent company, Vivendi Universal, owns a number of prominent hip-hop records, supported the Scarface-hip hop connection with both a hip-hop soundtrack to Scarface and a documentary on Scarface's lavish boxed-set DVD re-release in 2003. Plans were made to re-score Scarface with a completely hip-hop based soundtrack, but Brian DePalma, who had contractual final cut, refused to approve such a version of the film (De Palma has never tampered with any of his work, believing each film is its own "director's cut") when it was reissued on DVD.

The Scarface influence on hip-hop has been decried by many critics, many of whom are part of alternative hip hop, who feel that the fixiation of these rappers on a character such as Montana are poor influences for young people. Looking up to Scarface and Montana, they argue, would cause children and teenagers to romanticize crime, violence, and the mafioso lifestyle.

Scarface is distributed by a subsiduary of the same parent corporation that ultimately controls most of the biggest names in hip-hop. So, many of today's hiphop artists' lives, real and imagined, can be seen to mirror Tony's. Not so much in the superficial trapping of success that their masters might allow them, but in how they too are pawns, just as Tony was in the plans of other men. This is Scarface and hip-hop's ultimate irony.

Profanity and violence

The movie contains a good deal of profanity (the word fuck is used 182 times by Pacino alone) and violence, including a notorious shower scene featuring a chainsaw. It is the origin of the phrase "Say hello to my little friend", which Tony says before blowing away a door with an M203 grenade launcher and taking on a hit squad sent to assassinate him.