Unfortunately, the blockbuster trappings which have made it one of the director’s better-known movies are the same blockbuster trappings which make it one of his least characteristic—and one of his least interesting.

| Mar 11, 2025

As one of the best-remembered crime dramas of the 1980s, Scarface is just as poignant in the modern era, even if the pace is slower than expected.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 31, 2025

Scarface drowns in De Palma's veneration for the classics.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 29, 2024

Though almost as long, Scarface doesn't have the depth or complexity of either Godfather films. It is, however, a hard-hitting update of the old-style gangster movie.

| May 12, 2023

What could have been a somber, depressing story has been kept buoyantly afloat by De Palma's wry, sarcastic look at grown men who wear expensive suits and shoot each other.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2023

Scarface clearly lacks the suspense, macabre style and the deranged wit of previous De Palma films such as Carrie and Dressed to Kill. It is too slow for an action movie and too bent on destruction to make it for serious moviegoers.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 12, 2023

Working from Oliver Stone's script, De Palma shapes a chilling, unpleasant but perversely entertaining portrait of the cocaine business. To his credit, its 2 hours and 45 minutes fly by like so many bullets.

| May 12, 2023

Scarface is vile, sordid, dispiriting and degrading for all involved. It's major flaws, however, are its overall dullness and disorganization.

| May 12, 2023

For a time, it seems to be on the way toward greatness, but then -- perhaps reflecting the descent of its protagonist -- it tumbles into mediocrity.

| May 12, 2023

There's too much expertise, too much sheer love of movie-making up there on the screen for Scarface to be deemed a failure. But the director's failure to follow through makes this a too-long movie that comes up short.

| May 12, 2023

…packs the punch of a grenade-launcher…

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 11, 2023

De Palma directs it as a blood-drenched thug opera, a mix of the graceful and the garish with Pacinos guttural thug-in-a-suit spitting out dialogue like broken glass in a harsh Cuban accent.

| Mar 20, 2022

It will primarily be remembered as a machine-gun-soaked actioner of tough talk, cinematic betrayals and retribution, and mountains of cocaine.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 7, 2020

Day-Glo Miami is framed well by John A. Alonzo, and the pulsating music by Giorgio Moroder is worthy of a listen on its own.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 6, 2020

Pacino is a brilliant actor and his portrayal of a Cuban immigrant in Scarface is a perfect example of his work.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 27, 2019

Other than an unflinching, intense and extraordinary performance from Al Pacino as the Cuban-born gangster Tony Montana, this gruesome offering has little to recommend.

| Dec 3, 2018

Stone sticks all too closely to the dated plot structure of the original movie, and such melodramatic flourishes as Montana's incestuous attraction for his sister now seem completely ludicrous.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 9, 2015

It is a serious, often hilarious peek under the rock where nightmares strut in $800 suits and Armageddon lies around the next twist of treason.

| Jul 30, 2014

The sharp, if expletive-ridden, dialogue in Oliver Stone's script and the vivid cinematography of John A Alonzo help make De Palma's urban shocker a modern-day classic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2014

Characterization and plot go out the window. Arms are cut off with chain saws. By the third hour everything is out of control.

| Jul 30, 2014