Scarface

A rise and fall story set in Miami. Tony Montana comes from Cuba. He enters the United States in a mass departure in 1980 and waits in a camp. His first job is a green card in exchange for a murder. Then a dish pit, then a small drug job. A delivery goes wrong. Tony survives, brings the goods back, and gets his boss's attention that day. From there the film is an ascent. A woman, a mansion, a tiger, banks, a Bolivian partner and a paranoia that keeps growing. What the narrative is interested in is not money but the refusal of limits: Tony never stops and breaks his own rules as well; in the end nobody finishes him but himself. The line with his sister is the most uncomfortable thing in the film, and the narrative leaves it exposed on purpose. Its language and violence drew hard criticism on release. The ratings board assessed it at the highest certificate several times and the decision only changed after an appeal. The authorities in Miami were unwilling about the shoot, and part of the city was built in Los Angeles. The screenplay is by Oliver Stone. He wrote it outside the United States while trying to come off his own addiction. The source is a gangster film from 1932; the plot was moved from bootlegging to drugs. It did moderately at the box office on release and earned its cultural position in later years. Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Robert Loggia are in the cast. Brian De Palma directed. Who it is for: anyone who can take excess as a style. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the film runs close to three hours and exaggerates everything on purpose.