30 - "The Untouchables" (1987)

     "What are you prepared to do?" That's a question that resonates throughout Brian De Palma's 1987 classic mob film. Kevin Costner stars as Eliot Ness, a federal agent who has come to 1920's Prohibition-era Chicago to hunt down one of the biggest crime bosses in the country, Al Capone. Due to heavy corruption in the police force, he assembles a small hand-picked team to help him out. Sean Connery is at his best as Jim Malone, the "good" cop who knows all the secrets and is willing to help Ness out as long as he is willing to fight dirty sometimes. Malone knows that's what is needed to take down Capone. He states, "If they pull a knife, you pull a gun. They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue." They are joined by a young sharpshooter named George Stone (Andy Garcia) and an accountant who is forced to carry a gun, Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith). Capone is played brilliantly by Robert De Niro and is shown as a heartless villain who will beat an associate to death with a baseball bat in the middle of a dinner, just to prove a point. At first, Ness's group is not taken seriously by Capone, but after a few successes, they are termed the Untouchables and the war with Capone's gang hits a peak. The climax of this movie is one of the best scenes in movie history....period. It involves Ness and Stone tracking down Capone's accountant and some of his cronies to a train station stairway. Here a gunfight breaks out and is filmed in slow motion. The scene was De Palma's nod to the Odessa Steps sequence in the 1925 classic film, Battleship Potemkin. The Untouchables is a great film with acting that is superb up and down the roster. Connery even brought home a Supporting Actor Oscar for his part. If you have not given this movie a chance, do so. You will not be disappointed.