The Untouchables: Critic Reviews

It's vulgar, violent, funny and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful.

...only marginally entertaining.

...an entertaining but incongruous mix of class and pulp.

...it does not have a great script, great performances or great direction.

The results are watchable enough, with a particularly adept use of Sean Connery, Chicago locations, and period details.

The Untouchables is a beautifully crafted portrait of Prohibition-era Chicago.

An unqualified triumph.

A perfectly adequate Hollywood movie, even classy and entertaining at times, but, despite De Palma's brilliant set piece which reworks the Odessa steps sequence from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, this is disappointing stuff.

The film mostly revels in nostalgia and feels numb.

De Palma's masterpiece is an exhilarating, moving and larger-than-life cops vs. crooks epic. Connery and De Niro steal the show in charismatic supporting turns. The best film of 1987.

The narrative thunders to its conclusion like a locomotive.

De Palma's stylish crime-gangster tale is extremely enjoybale in large measure due to the set-pieces and homages to Sergio Leone and Eisenstein, but also to Sean Connery's great performance for which he deservedly won the Supporting Actor Oscar.

De Palma, Mamet, De Niro, Connery ... what's not to like?

A true crime classic film; DePalma's best.

It's one of the all-time great gangster flicks, a gorgeously realized production that places archetypal heroes and villains in the service of a rip-roaring storyline.

Steeped in De Palma's glorious violence and sinuous cinematography, but stripped of his tricky sensuality and his anarchic self-reflective wit.

Superb performances, exquisite direction and that Ennio Morricone score create an authentic 1920s Chicago feel and a hugely entertaining crime drama.

The pacing is lethargic as the director seems to treat this saga of law and order with mock seriousness.

a magnificent movie about political clout -- a worthy subject that Hollywood's rarely bothered to tackle and usually gets wrong

Costner's lack of charisma, Connery's arrogance, and De Palma's disinterest in his material add up to a pretty lame couple of hours.

Too campy for its topic matter...Costner is typically dull as a 75 year-old unsharpened sword.