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Movie Review Monday: The Untouchables

the_untouchables_originalThis week's movie is 1987's The Untouchables, starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, and Robert De Niro. The film dramatizes the historical events of Al Capone's downfall during the Prohibition Era of American history. As a history major, I enjoyed seeing movies set in real historical contexts. This movie unfortunately seems to simplify these events into an action movie, which doesn't make for a terrible movie, it just feels like there could have been more substance. The acting isn't too great either so that doesn't help much with the story. The action however, is pretty solid, with Costner, Connery, and Garcia taking down the bootleggers in brutal fashion.

As with a movie like Olympus Has Fallen, there isn't much more to discuss here. This movie doesn't work for me as well as some other classic 80's action movies since it has some trouble with pacing for me where something like Commando, for example (which needs to be back on Netflix, it was for a time), is able to avoid since it is just straight action without a focus much on plot. What is so unique about this era of action movies is that they somehow get away with it, where The Untouchables doesn't.

I'll leave you to see what you think of this movie. It's streaming on Netflix now and isn't terrible but it's not great either from my estimation. I watched this movie mostly since it was sitting in my queue for a very long time. I'd be interested to hear what any of you think.

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