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The most fascinating movie villain of all time? How could we leave out the druglord Tony Montana from Brian De Palma's classical gangster film Scarface?
Tony Montana is one of the most ruthless criminals ever depicted in film history. He traveled across the sea from Cuba to the United States, fought his way up from the bottom of society, and eventually emerged from a pool of blood by sheer guts and ruthlessness to become the king of drugs in the Miami underworld.
But it is this crazy, tyrannical character who has managed to become an enduring icon in the pop culture world.
The Hispanic community, which should have been offended by this 1983 film, eventually considered Tony Montana an ethnic hero.
Gangsta hip-hop artists who emerged in the 1990s found in him a spiritual icon to identify with.
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Hipsters familiar with street style saw Tony as a classic icon, and T-shirts and jackets featuring his images were seen as cash cows by various fashion labels, coming out in rounds and rounds;
And Scarface's place in cinema history has grown over time. From being collectively maligned by the press when it was first released in the 80s, to being gradually rescued from critical disaster status around 2000, with commemorative DVD/Blu-ray released numerous times, to becoming a recognized classic in recent years, with countless films and stars paying it the highest of homages……
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It just makes us wonder: what makes this villain an unlikely hero in the eyes of the whole world?
1. Courage
The first trait we notice about Tony Montana is obviously courage. The scar over his left eye hints at his lack of fear in the face of physical confrontation; the way he stares directly into the eyes of his opponents oozes a strong sense of aggression. How many people can face a Colombian drug dealer's chainsaw without being chicken, and instead tell the other guy to f**k himself? How many people can stand up to an army of 100 men attacking their home and never think about surrendering?
Tony had guts beyond the norm. It was obviously innate. Mental strength is something that can be developed later, but without a good foundation, any training is for naught. In society, we all hope that we can bravely fight against injustice and inequality, to create our own order, but few people truly have the courage to do so, but this is easy for Tony. It makes us envy him and want to be him.
But what we also have to recognize is, Tony's courage was also made possible by the fact that he had no choice but to grow up in a difficult environment. Born into a single-parent family, he came from a poor background, and in order to occupy any resources, he needed to win in the cruel competition. Such an environment does not encourage the weak-minded, and human life is not worth a penny in this world. This is why Tony is neither afraid to die nor hesitant to kill anybody in the process of climbing the underworld ladders. Having grown up in the jungle, he knows the rules: you either succeed or you die, there's no other way.
2. Insight
Tony has the guts needed to become a drug lord. But guts alone are not enough to make a drug lord. When people think of Tony, they mostly remember his swag, but not so much his intelligence. Nevertheless, Tony has the instinctive intelligence of a predator: like a shark that smells blood, he can detect the weaknesses of his opponents at first sight, then use them to formulate his attack strategy.
Tony is wary of Frank's henchman Omar, he sees through Omar's desire to take credit for the cocaine heist, so he insists on handing the goods over to Frank himself, a tactical step that allows him to escape a lifetime of being a nobody, thus kicks open the door to the underworld without a hitch. After he first meets Frank, the drug lord his and future boss, he immediately figures out the weakness of this guy: he is addicted to alcohol and women, and sooner or later he's going to fall for either one of them. Things end up just as he predicted.
3. Honesty
Tony may have many moral flaws, but hypocrisy is certainly not one of them. As a villain, Tony is bad in an honest way: killing in plain sight in a nightclub, robbing cocaine on the street in broad daylight, and robbing his boss in front of his woman without any cover-up. His joys and sorrows are written on his face, he is too lazy to put on a mask. If you go straight to the point, you are his partner and friend, if you play tricks, then just don't bother to waste his time.
Tony hates hypocrisy. He hated journalists, lawyers, accountants, and politicians, these people always take a bunch of grandiose reasons to justify themselves. Tony never does this. In the restaurant scene near the end of the movie, he denounces the hypocrisy of others: “You need people like me so you can point to me and say I'm the bad guy. But how good are you? You guys are just better at hiding and lying than I can be."
Tony's candor is enviable. We all have the ability to recognize hypocrisy, but as we grow up, we come to accept the necessity of its existence, and even as we get older, we become unable to recognize it at all. What Tony criticizes is what we want to criticize but don't, forced by our survival instincts. Honesty is a luxury in a civilized society, and sometimes we can only find it in the fantasies created by movies.
4. Loyalty
Even though he is bad to the core, Tony is still a loyal man by nature.
He is loyal to his family. Even though his mother has broken up with him, he still doesn't forget to send money home from time to time, and in his less-than-successful way, he discourages his little sister, Gina, from drugs and nightclubs.
He is loyal to his friends and his woman. Even when his brother Manny is unfit to be his consultant and his wife Elvira is in constant conflict with him, he still doesn't look for others to replace their place, because they remind him of where he came from.
He stays true to his principles. Though murderous, he never hurts women or children. His partner asked him to assist in the assassination of a reporter, but he faltered when he saw that the reporter had brought his wife and two small children with him. This ultimately led to his downfall, but given Tony the dilemma a hundred times over, he'd probably still make the same choice.
Tony is a feared and ruthless character. But there's one thing not to worry about: he would never shoot you in the back. Even with all his evil, the man still has his principles. He's a true spokesman for the saying “Honor among thieves”.
5. Al Pacino
Even with all of Tony's anti-hero qualities, it would have been futile without Al Pacino's charismatic portrayal of him. It was Pacino's flame-like eyes, panther-like body language, and machine-gun-like line delivery that created a soul for Tony Montana. We can't imagine any other actor who could have brought the character to life as well as he did, which is why the Scarface remake has been in the Hollywood pipeline for years but has been slow to get off the ground: no one has dared to challenge Pacino's iconic performance.
Tony Montana is also the role that firmly established Pacino as a legend. Even though he was already Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon, and Frank Serpico in Serpico, without a larger-than-life mob boss character like Tony, who had a completely different temperament than Michael Corleone, Pacino would still be a little short of his current iconic status. Scarface showed the world that Pacino, in addition to his grim and restrained side, has another side that is as domineering as he is fiery. As with his performance in The Godfather, in Scarface, Pacino proved once again that he can make his villainous characters likable. He is Hollywood's eternal prince of darkness.
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