What s coming to you? The world, Chico, and everything in it.
Brian De Palma s Scarface rises or falls with Al Pacino s performance, which is aggressive, over the top, teeth-gnashing, arm-waving, cocaine-snorting, scenery chewing and brilliant, some say, while others find it unforgivably flamboyant. What were Pacino s detractors hoping for? Something internal and realistic? Low key? The Tony Montana character is above all a performance artist, a man who exists in order to gloriously be himself. From the film s opening shots, in which he is one more disposable Cuban ex-con in a Florida detention center, his whole drive is to impress his personality and will on others. He begins with no resources or weapons, except for his bravado, and fakes out more powerful men simply by