I used to think Scarface was just a fun movie with lots of cursing and violence. It’s actually a brilliant piece of work. Even though no Hispanic person I’ve ever met speaks with an accent like that, all the performances, not just Al’s, are fantastic. There is a lot of comedy here — despite being the baddest badass of them all (I believe the phrase “You fuck with me, you fuckin’ with the best!” comes to mind) Tony Montana was a wonderfully unspoken self-deprecation streak. This is something that isn’t in the script . . .it all comes out in Al’s moves and looks. Another fun thing I noticed this time: this movie is ALL rise and fall. Not rise, success, fall. . .the first half is rise, then he kills Robert Loggia, sees the GoodYear Blimp, fade to black. A quick musical montage of “success” and then BAM the next scene he’s being a dick to Manny and Elvira. Even though this is such a famously “over the top” movie, this is actually one of De Palma’s most restrained films from a camera perspective. With the exception of the shootout at the Babylon club and the ending there’s very little of De Palma’s trademark spatial movement or multiple framing. If it weren’t for those two scenes, you’d never know he directed it.