Synopsis: He loved the American Dream. With a Vengeance.

In the spring of 1980, the port at Mariel Harbor was opened, and thousands set sail for the United States. They came in search of the American Dream. One of them found it on the sun-washed avenues of Miami… wealth, power and passion beyond his wildest dreams. he was Tony Montana. The world will remember him by another name… Scarface.
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Scarface (1983) 7.0

I know that a lot of people really like this movie, but I’ve always found that it suffers from some serious pacing issues; there are times when it just drags along needlessly. And yet none of its scenes are .superfluous – there’s just something missing.

Furthermore, it hasn’t aged well: the Giorgio Moroder score alone makes it seem older than it actually is – you could only find a synthesizer score like this one from the late ’70s until maybe this one (it must have been the last of its kind!). And some of the set-ups and sets are definitely ’80s – like the ending, which could only have been cobbled together in an era that would produce a gazillion Jean Claude Van Damme movies and Madmax clones. Ick.

As for Al Pacino, one of Hollywood’s most over-rated actors, he fares alright. I’m not sure, but I think that he started to develop his method of screaming his lines in …And Justice For All – however it must have been Scarface that sealed the deal for him; boy does he go over-the-top in this one! Still, he does have his moments and they make up for his brick-through-a-plate-glass-window style of acting.