When I first saw this film in 1983 I had no idea it was going to become such a pop culture phenomenon. In fact, the only reason most people went was because of the huge problems director Brian De Palma had getting the ‘chainsaw’ scene past censors. Well, if you’ve seen the film, you know not much of the gore made it, and the film is still a racist, sexist mess, with some of the best lines of dialogue of any film from the 20th century. I actually think the film is a better evoker of the greedy 80’s than any other film, certainly better than Oliver Stone’s overrated ‘Wall Street’. But the film is still famous more for the excess, and the crazy gore, rather than the story or the acting, which has Al Pacino covered in greasy makeup to play gangster Tony Montana. That is just one of the reasons the film is one of the last great racist Hollywierd films, not just because they did the old 50’s trick of covering a white actor with makeup, but all the Cubans are sleazy, untrustworthy slime that are better off dead, than living in our America. Pacino has never met scenery he wouldn’t like to chew, but he outdoes himself here with his crazy over the top antics. Michelle Pfeiffer, in one of her first roles, is terrific and very attractive as trophy tramp Elvira. Never able to resist a line, or a great line of dialogue, she is the voice of reason to keep Tony in line. She fails, and so the stage is set for one of the craziest and silliest ends of any movie. The mountain of coke, the rocker launchers, the sleazy Cubans, it really is the most over the top end of any movie. Shame the film takes so long to get there. But the film is a big, dumb classic. And certainly better than ‘The Godfather’.