at one point during brian de palma's crime epic scarface , the radiant michelle pfeiffer turns to a ranting al pacino and pops a question that the audience has no doubt been wanting to ask for themselves : " can't you stop saying 'fuck' all the time ? " 
fucking good question , that . 
it may not be an honour that instills the filmmakers with pride , but as far as i can tell oliver stone's script contains the said expletitive more times than any other film in cinema history . 
yet it would be a shame if bad language is all de palma's scarface is remembered for , because this is a damn fine gangstar flick . 
the overall structure is similar to howard hawks' 1932 original , but this time the scene has switched to miami , florida and our anti-hero's chosen vice is cocaine traffiking . 
pacino , sporting a thick cuban accent , gives one the best performances of his career ( golden globe nominated ) as tony montana , a cuban refugee with a criminal past who flees castro and comes to america to live the american dream . 
and live it out he does , with lashings of violence , abuse , murder and the funny white powder . 
from his earliest jobs as a drug runner for various middlemen , tony montana makes it clear to everyone he meets that he's not a man to be fucked ( sorry ) . 
soon he's the king of the cocaine heap , but his hot head and an increasingly out of control drug addiction prove his undoing . 
 " never do your own stash " , warns one character early in the film . 
as sure as night follows day , the emperor of miami eventually falls . 
writer oliver stone and director brian de palma make an explosive combination here . 
stone's script offers solid storytelling and some fine character development . 
montana is fascinating ; uneducated but calculating , a straight shooter who speaks from the heart ; an ambitious , violent man yet one with a conscience . 
a man fiercely protective of his beautiful 20 year old sister , not wanting her to be sucked into the glitzy , dangerous world which he inhabits . 
pacino is dynamite , taking to the role with a brooding , bristling energy which in his more recent films has often degenerated into just simple overracting . 
pfeiffer also registers strongly as the gangstar mole with no inner life . 
only once does tony express real affection for her and his desire to have children , and even then you sense all he really wants is a regular screw and a beautiful object to show off to his friends , and she's happy to oblige . 
this isn't as meaty a role for pfieffer as sharon stone's was in casino , but its an effective one nonetheless and she aquits herself well . 
as director , de palma sets up a number of dramatic scenes with his typical stylistic brauva . 
the escalating tension he creates in various mob situations - a drug deal gone wrong , an assination attempt - is often thrilling , and in this respect he is every bit the equal of scorese and coppola . 
where he differs from , say , coppola's godfather trilogy is in his overall treatment . 
coppola gives his crime sagas an operatic sweep , whereas in scarface de palma opts for a grittier feel . 
and it perfectly suits the material . 
the only major botch is giorgio moroder's mostly crap synthesier score . 
it's just not right , and unfortunately compromises the impact of some otherwise good scenes . 
as expected , scarface is very violent at times , but you shouldn't be watching gangster movies if that upsets you . 
at over two and a half hours in length it's a true epic , and if you're a fan of the genre you'll love f * * k-filled minute of it . 
