Scarface (1983) – Steelbook

Posted May 25, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

When Fidel Castro opens the harbor at Mariel, Cuba, he allows Cubans to reunite with their families in the US, but at the same time he also takes the opportunity to get rid of all the criminals in his prisons and puts them on boats towards the United States as well. One of them is Tony Montana, a small time crook who plans to make it big in the US. Together with his friend Manny, he manages to get enlisted by a local drug lord and after he succesfully finished a deal that went wrong with Columbians, his star in the world of crime starts to rise.

Sound and Vision:
Seeing as this movie dates from 1983, we were a bit scared that the transfer to Blu-ray wouldn’t be so great, even if it would improve the overall viewing experience compared to previous releases. Luckily, our fears were in vein. Yes, the picture isn’t without faults, but overall Universal has done a great job in restoring the image. Skin textures look great, especially in close-ups, there’s very good fine object detailing, dark scenes shot at night still have good visibility in shadows, black levels are rich and intense, and contrast is spot on. Overall we don’t think things could have been expected to be better. Great job!

The movie is dialogue-driven and being from the early 80s, one cannot expect a track that compares to modern day movies. Still, taking that into account we get excellent sound with prioretization for dialogues while surrounds are used for music and some minor effects. Overall a good soundtrack when you take into account this was originally made in stereo.

Extras:
- The Scarface Phenomenon
- The World of Tony Montana
- Deleted Scenes
- The Rebirth of Scarface
- Acting Scarface
- Creating Scarface
- Scarface: The TV Version
- The Making of Scarface: The Video Game
- Scarface Scoreboard
- Picture in Picture

Over an hour and a half of extras including a brand new retrospective with interviews of the filmmakers, cast and other notable celebrities talking extensively about their love of the film. And if that isn’t enough yet, there’s also a digital copy of the movie and last but not least also a DVD with the original 1932 Howard Hanks movie. Excellent stuff!

Conclusion:
Brian De Palma’s Scarface is a remake of the 1932 movie with the same name by Howard Hanks. It’s a dark vision on the American Dream gone haywire with in the lead an excellent Al Pacino who, if it weren’t for The Godfather, would no doubt be most remembered for his role as Tony Montana.

The movie in its time was criticized a lot of its violent nature and tons of swearing, but these days it’s become a classic and with reason. The script by Oliver Stone is excellent, the acting is terrific and the directing by De Palma is just awesome. Scarface is truly on the best movies in history, and sits in line with such ganster classics as The Godfather, Chinatown and Goodfellas.

Universal’s limited edition steelbook of De Palma’s 1983 movie comes with image and sound quality that is better than what one would expect from a movie from that time, and is packed with interesting extras as well as a copy of the Howard Hanks original. This blu-ray release truly pays hommage to a fantastic movie and is definitely a must-have for any collector.

Paul Eagle, The – Special Edition