Product Details

• Actors: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Rated: X (Mature Audiences Only)
• Number of tapes: 2
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: March 1, 1992
• Run Time: 170 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (808 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300183211
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,537 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

This sprawling epic of bloodshed and excess, Brian De Palma's update of the classic 1932 crime drama by Howard Hawks, sparked controversy over its outrageous violence when released in 1983. Scarface is a wretched, fascinating car wreck of a movie, starring Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee who rises to the top of Miami's cocaine-driven underworld, only to fall hard into his own deadly trap of addiction and inevitable assassination. Scripted by Oliver Stone and running nearly three hours, it's the kind of film that can simultaneously disgust and amaze you (critic Pauline Kael wrote "this may be the only action picture that turns into an allegory of impotence"), with vivid supporting roles for Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Robert Loggia. Universal's special edition digital video disc includes a documentary about the making of the film that features numerous interviews and several deleted scenes. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.com

This sprawling epic of bloodshed and excess, Brian De Palma's update of the classic 1932 crime drama by Howard Hawks, sparked controversy over its outrageous violence when released in 1983. Scarface is a wretched, fascinating car wreck of a movie, starring Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee who rises to the top of Miami's cocaine-driven underworld, only to fall hard into his own deadly trap of addiction and inevitable assassination. Scripted by Oliver Stone and running nearly three hours, it's the kind of film that can simultaneously disgust and amaze you (critic Pauline Kael wrote "this may be the only action picture that turns into an allegory of impotence"), with vivid supporting roles for Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Robert Loggia. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

153 of 175 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally!, November 2, 2003

By 

Wing J. Flanagan (Orlando, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scarface (Widescreen Two-Disc Anniversary Edition) (DVD)

The reason to buy this DVD is simple: one of the most influential films of the 20th century has finally been released in a newly restored, pristine transfer. As an owner of the original DVD release, I can testify that the difference is like night and day.

With every viewing, I come to appreciate Brian DePalma's Scarface more and more. Although not perfect, there is much more right with this film than wrong. It helps to compare it with its countless imitations: where most subsequent crime films rush headlong from one bloody gunfight to the next, Scarface takes its time. Its languid, gliding camera has a certain elegance in the way it reveals story points without relying on clunky Dick-and-Jane dialog or overwrought MTV pyrotechnics. A prime example is the infamous scene where Tony Montana (Al Pacino) attemps to buy two kilos of cocaine from some Coloumbians for his boss, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia). Watch the way the camera drifts from the Miami Beach hotel room, across a peaceful sun-drenched street, over to the car where Tony's associates are waiting for him, then slowly back up to the bathroom window, where the sound of the idling chainsaw grows louder. Creepy. Insinuating. It's comparable to the best work of Hitchcock - a day-lit nightmare where the ordinary becomes sinister. Watch closely as the Columbian dismembers Tony's friend limb by limb. In spite of the scene's reputation, we never actually see what's happening. Like the shower murder in Psycho, all the violence is implied - so strongly, in fact, that DePalma had to fight the MPAA in a well-publicized battle to keep Scarface from receiving an X rating.

It's interesting the way that the improved picture and sound seem to contribute to every aspect of the film. Subtleties in Pacino's largely unsubtle performance become clear. We can better see what he does with his face in those famously shadowy close-ups; the way he registers what he's thinking privately, even as he swaggers with exaggerated bravado. Where once it seemed he was over-acting at times, it is now apparent that he was carefully playing his character's machismo against a darker undercurrent of great hunger - so intense that it defies articulation. Tony Montana's great tragedy is his utter lack of self-knowlege. Beneath the clouds of cordite and testosterone, he is so painfully needy that he will draw everyone around him into a decaying orbit of destruction. He is a criminal, but he is not immoral. He is a black hole of a man, a vacuous human being whose desires eclipse whatever soul that a life of deprivation and decay may have left him. He acts without apology, or even much thought. He's an animal in both the best and worst senses of the word. The tragedy is not so much that he is killed at the end - he brings that on himself - it is that so many others, not least the addicts that buy his product, must suffer and die as well. It's downright Shakespearean, but with (lots of) f-words in place of gilded Elizabethan speech.

Once you get past those 160-odd f-variants, Oliver Stone's screenplay begins to seem as thoughtful as it is blunt. The language is harsh, but also truthful, with plenty of quotable lines (though you would not want to quote them in polite company).

The improved sound mix also brings into relief something that I had always looked upon as a liability of Scarface - the very "80's" music score, which had always seemed to me the newer equivalent of those ham-handed "jazz" scores from certain 50's melodramas like Man With the Golden Arm. But now the music seems "dated" more in the way of an early James Bond score; it is appropriate to the era. Were Scarface made now, it would still be a legitimate choice of styles.

The extras are thorough, though the "making of" documentary seems to be a longer version of the one from the original DVD release. There is also a documentary on Scarface's considerable influence on hip-hop music, but I smell an Obvious Plug for a CD of music "inspired" by the film. (The package insert proclaims that it's In Stores Now! from DefJam records.)

In any case, Scarface has finally received its due respect in a form that showcases the late John Alonso's brightly-hued, yet somehow gritty cinematography. Alonso also photographed the sumptuous Chinatown. This DVD is also a tribute to him - a master of light and shadow, whose old-fashioned, hard-lit chiaroscuro images contributed in no small way to Scarface's status as a modern classic.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Say hello to my little friend", February 16, 2003

By 

N. Durham "Big Evil" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scarface (1983) (2 Tapes) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Brian De Palma's epic blood soaked remake of the 1932 Paul Muni gangster classic may not have gotten all the critical acclaim in the world, but it stands as a landmark performance of the great Al Pacino. Pacino brings to the screen one of his most well known characters in his career as Tony Montana; a cuban refugee who rises to power in Miami's cocaine underworld. Along with him is his best friend Manny (Steve Bauer) and the two begin working for Frank (Robert Loggia), a slimy, manipulative excess driven drug kingpin whose wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) Tony soon develops an obsession for. Oliver Stone wrote the script and helped make Tony one of the most unforgettable characters in all of American cinema. Scarface has since become a cult classic and contains some of the most memorable lines of dialogue in film, not to mention the most rampant use of profanity that would not be topped for years to come. The only problem I ever had with Scarface was it's length; clocking in at nearly 3 hours, there are times when the film drags, but that is only a minor complaint. All in all, if you want to see one of Al Pacino's finest performances (aside from Devil's Advocate, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, or anything beginning with the title The Godfather), then consider Scarface essential viewing, but be warned, this is not a film for all tastes.

37 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On DVD, yet again..., October 8, 2006

By 

N. Durham "Big Evil" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scarface (Platinum Edition) (DVD)

Brian De Palma's blood soaked gangster epic is on DVD, once again. I'll say this right off the bat, if you own the previously released Special Edition of Scarface, there's no reason to run out and buy this Platinum Edition, which has an assortment of previously released extras to go along with a counter for how many times the "F" word is used and how many bullets are fired. Besides that, there's nothing here that hasn't been seen before, but if you don't already own Scarface on DVD, well then, this is worth picking up. As for the film itself, it's a bloody crime epic featuring one of Al Pacino's best, and most infamous, performances as Cuban hood turned drug kingpin Tony Montana; but chances are, you already know all that. The DVD's picture quality looks cleaner, and the "remastered and remixed" sound is crisper as well, but whether or not you want to lay down the cash for this depends on how many times you've been suckered into buying the movie.