Brian DePalma

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Dressed To Kill (1980) e` un altro thriller derivato da Hitchcok (Psycho) e diretto all'insegna di virtuosismi tecnici, erotismo e violenza. Kate e` un'avvenente casalinga, sessualmente frustrata da un marito egoista, con un figlio genialoide (avuto dal primo marito). Si sfoga con Robert, il suo freddo e distaccato psichiatra, e gli si offre persino, ma Robert e` sposato. Al museo Kate, bisognosa di sentirsi attraente, e` lusingata da uno sconosciuto che le ha rivolto qualche occhiata e quasi lo insegue. Pentita, sta per andarsene quando lui, con il pretesto di un guanto che lei ha perso, la invita nel taxi dove la sta aspettando, e, senza preamboli, le mette le mani addosso. Kate, piacevolmente sorpresa, si lascia portare a casa sua. Nel mezzo della notte si riveste cercando di non farsi sentire, ma prima di uscire scorge per caso un certificato medico che attesta che l'uomo e` afflitto da sifilide e fugge in preda al panico. Nell'ascensore si rende conto di aver dimenticato l'anello sul comodino e torna sui suoi passi. Quando l'ascensore si apre, pero`, Kate si trova di fronte un travestito armato di rasoio che le si avventa addosso e la sgozza. Quando l'ascensore si riapre, ad attendere c'e` una sofisticata call-girl, Liz, con un suo cliente. Lui fugge subito, lei resta sgomenta a guardare il cadavere, e vede nello specchio in alto l'omicida nascosto che sta per colpirla. Riesce a ghermire il rasoio e a fuggire. Poco dopo Robert rientra in casa e trova diversi messaggi sull'answering machine: uno e` di un travestito (Bobbi) che gli confessa di aver rubato il suo rasoio e di aver ucciso con quello. L'altro e` della polizia che lo avverte dell'assassinio della sua cliente. Quando Robert arriva alla polizia, il figlio genialoide ha gia` deciso di incaricarsi delle indagini e ascolta con un microfono il suo interrogatorio. Il commissario, rozzo e volgare, ha gia` ricostruito gli ultimi momenti della donna, e sospetta che il colpevole sia fra i clienti dello psichiatra. Ma questi rifiuta di fornirgli aiuto trincerandosi dietro il segreto professionale. Il commissario sa anche che la ragazza e` una pregiudicata, e la scaccia in malomodo minacciandola di arresto se non gli porta l'uomo che era con lei quella sera. Ma lei non ha idea di chi fosse. Il ragazzo intanto prende nota di tutti coloro che visitano lo studio di Robert e progetta macchinari per spiare meglio. La ragazza invece e` pedinata, a sua insaputa, dal biondo travestito. Mentre il ragazzo ascolta via microfono una telefonata registrata dal transessuale sull'answering machine di Robert, sull'altra meta` dello schermo Liz sta prendendo un appuntamento di "lavoro" nel suo appartamento. Quando Liz esce dall'appuntamento, si rende conto di essere pedinata dal travestito. Semina l'inseguitore grazie a un tassista, ma lo ritrova davanti a casa propria. S'infila nella metropolitana, ma Bobbi la bracca approfittando di un gruppo di teppisti neri da cui sta fuggendo. Finisce dritta fra i suoi artigli, mentre i teppisti si dileguano. Sta per colpirla con il rasoio quando interviene il ragazzo con uno spray. Bobbi fugge. Il ragazzo e` certo di aver visto Bobbi uscire dallo studio di Robert. Liz e il ragazzo diventano amici e alleati. La ragazza va a raccontare l'attentato al commissario e lo supplica di perquisire lo studio di Robert. Lui pero` non puo` farlo, ma le fa capire che dovrebbe farlo lei illegalmente. Lo psichiatra crede di sapere chi e` l'omicida e va a cercarlo nella casa di cura dove e` ricoverato dopo il cambio di sesso. Robert si confida con il dottore che ha in cura Bobbi. La ragazza va a trovare lo psichiatra con la scusa di essere affetta da incubi, e poi gli si offre. Si spoglia. Lui e` timidissimo. Per non metterlo in imbarazzo, Liz lo lascia solo nello studio a spogliarsi. Liz approfitta pero` di quel pretesto per curiosare nell'archivio dello psichiatra. Trova il file che cercava. Fuori il ragazzo sta seguendo la scena sotto l'acquazzone con l'aiuto di un binocolo. Liz torna nello studio ma, invece di Robert, trova ad attenderla c'e` l'omicida pronto a sfozzarla. Il ragazzo la avverte bussando alla finestra, ma sarebbe la fine se qualcuno non sparasse e disarmasse Bobbi. Si tratta di una poliziotta che ha seguito tutto su ordine del commissario. Bobbi e` lo psichiatra stesso, afflitto da sdoppiamento di personalita`, che deve uccidere tutte le donne che gli provocano attrazione sessuale. Il dottore dell'ospedale cura aveva in cura Bobbi il transessuale, afflitto da conflitti fra la sua parte maschile e la sua parte femminile, e, quando Robert si presento` a denunciare Bobbi, fu di fatto una confessione: il dottore tento` di avvisare la polizia, ma troppo tardi. In ospedale Robert strangola un'infermiera, e la spoglia sotto gli occhi degli altri pazzi. Poi si reca a casa della prostituta. Liz sta prendendo la doccia, sente i passi (tutto filmato al rallentatore). E` lui vestito per meta` con gli indumenti dell'infermiera e le taglia la gola... ma e` soltanto un incubo. La ragazza si risveglia nel proprio letto. Liz e` l'unico personaggio umano, sensibile e generoso. Gli altri (moglie, marito, amico occasionale, psichiatra, commissario) compongono l'affresco di un'umanita` cinica e depravata, tutti piu` o meno anormali. Il film e` una specie di variazione in piu` movimenti su Psycho. I temi sono gli stessi, ma sono stati rimescolati. Blow Out (1981) is a delirious thriller inspired by Antonioni's Blow Up (1966) and Coppola's The Conversation (1974), boasting a legendary cynical ending. Una guardia che spia dalla finestra un party di ragazze seminude. Alla musica e` sovrapposto il respiro ansimante del maniaco che uccide la guardia e poi entra in casa. Il posto pullula di avvenenti ragazze. Il maniaco, riflesso nello specchio del bagno, uccide una ragazza che sta facendo la doccia, e la ragazza emette un gridolino ridicolo. Si tratta di un film in corso di produzione. Jack e` il tecnico degli effetti sonori, che viene incaricato di generare un urlo degno della scena. Jack, che ha un laboratorio di strumenti sofisticati, si mette al lavoro. Il suo lavoro consiste nel registrare suoni e classificarli nel suo archivio. In televisione parlano delle prossime elezioni, che il governatore sembra destinato a vincere facilmente. (Lo schermo e` diviso in due, da un lato le apparecchiature di Jack e dall'altro il notiziario televisivo). Jack, armato di microfono, registratore e cuffie, si reca di notte in un posto solitario a registrare suoni. Assiste cosi` a un incidente stradale: un'auto sbanda e finisce nel lago. L'uomo e` morto ma la donna e` viva. Jack la salva e la consegna alla polizia. Jack va a visitare la ragazza in ospedale e lo trova assediato dai reporter: la vittima e` proprio il governatore che era destinato a diventare il prossimo presidente. Un amico e collaboratore del governatore chiede a Jack di mantenere il silenzio sulla presenza di una ragazzina nell'auto, e gli rivela che la polizia ha gia` acconsentito a nascondere le circostanze imbarazzanti della sua fine. Jack deve cosi` prendersi cura della ragazza, Sally, a casa sua. Riascoltando il nastro, pero`, Jack si rende conto che prima dell'incidente qualcuno aveva sparato un colpo. Jack controlla l'auto e scopre il buco del proiettile in uno dei pneumatici. Quando si riprende, la stupida e naif Sally e` offesa dalle insinuazioni di Jack e se ne va. Poi Jack sente per televisione che un fotografo sostiene di aver scattato foto dell'incidente e si rende conto che si tratta di una colossale montatura. Jack tenta di spiegare alla polizia l'accaduto, ma il detective ha poco interesse ad aprire un'indagine. Inoltre qualcuno cancella tutti i nastri di Jack. Intanto gli studio continuano a cercare una ragazza che emetta l'urlo di cui hanno bisogno per completare il film. Jack si mette a indagare di persona e scopre che il fotografo aveva preso fotografie compromettenti della coppia, ovvero Sally, in combutta con il fotografo, era in quell'auto per incastrare il governatore e poi ricattarlo. Jack va a trovarla e le spiega che qualcuno sta tentando di far scomparire tutte le prove, e lei potrebbe essere la prossima. Infatti qualcuno ha ucciso una ragazza scambiandola per Sally. Invano Jack tenta di convincere la polizia, ma da solo scopre che l'uomo politico e` stato oggetto di una congiura tesa a rovinarne la reputazione. Un reporter televisivo crede alla storia di Jack e vorrebbe dedicargli una trasmissione, ma Jack non ha piu` le prove. Jack convince pero` Sally che il fotografo ha tentato di ucciderla quella sera nell'auto e Sally accetta di sottrargli i negativi delle fotografie, quelle vere. Poi Jack chiama il reporter televisivo, ma qualcuno sta registrando la sua telefonata, e poi la telefonata con cui avverte la ragazza che tutto e` a posto. L'uomo che ha ascoltato tutto telefona a Sally spacciandosi per il reporter e le da` un appuntamento alla stazione per farsi consegnare il film. Sally pero` prima va a trovare Jack e Jack annusa puzza di bruciato: fa una copia del film e nasconde un microfono nei vestiti della ragazza. Sui giornali e` comparsa la notizia dell'assassinio della ragazza che assomiglia a Sally, ma Jack e Sally non li hanno visti. L'uomo che si spaccia per il reporter porta pero` la ragazza su un treno della metropolitana e Jack, che non fa in tempo a saltare sul treno, li deve inseguire in auto. A causa di una parata, Jack finisce pero` dentro la vetrina di un negozio. Stordito, viene coricato in un'ambulanza, ma si riprende in tempo per sentire che l'assassino sta per uccidere Sally. Jack li trova sotto i fuochi artificiali, blocca la mano dell'assassino che stava per accoltellarla e lo pugnala con lo stesso suo coltello, ma la ragazza e` ` gia` morta strangolata e il nastro e` distrutto. La televisione da` la notizia che un'altra ragazza attraente e` stata uccisa da un assassino misterioso. Sul nastro di Jack e` rimasto l'urlo della ragazza. Jack vende quell'urlo al regista, che puo` cosi` completare il suo film. Sull'omicidio dell'uomo politico rimarra` il segreto, perche' assassino, prove e testimone sono scomparsi e i media credono che a uccidere il mostro sia stata la ragazza nel difendersi.

Scarface (1983), a loose three-hour remake of the Howard Hawks classic gangster movie of 1932, a remake scripted by Oliver Stone, indulges in violent scenes and in vulgar language, but is a much more conventional film compared with DePalma's Hitchcock-ian thrillers. Trying to replicate the fatalistic mood and stately pace of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), at times it is also slow and it feels overlong given the kind of simple story that it tells, but the breathtaking last 30 minutes or so compensate for the slow pace of the first half. It also exerted a huge influence on hip-hop music. The film opens by informing us that in 1980 Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro tricked the USA into accepting thousands of criminals as exiles. One such criminal, Tony (Al Pacino), spends a few months in a refugee camp. When a riot erupts, he assassinates an old man as requested by a drug lord in return for the green card. He and his friend Manny get a job as dishwashers at a fast-food joint. The druglord's right-hand man Omar offers them the opportunity to make a lot of money with a cocaine job. Tony and Manny quit the job at the fast-food joint and hook up with Angel and Chi Chi for extra security. They drive to the appointment with the Colombian dealers. It's a trap: Tony and Angel are seized while Manny and the other one are distracted by sexy girls. The Colombians kill Angel with a chainsaw to make Tony speak, but Tony doesn't. Manny and Chi Chi finally move in and save Tony just in time. The trio kills all the Colombians and take the cocaine. They personally deliver money and cocaine to the druglord, Frank, who lives in luxury mansion. Frank is impressed and hires Tony and Manny. They also meet Frank's gorgeous wife Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer). Frank, Elvira, Omar, Tony and Frank spend the night at a nightclub. Elvira is hostile to Frank and instead dances with Tony. Elvira looks down on Tony, a poor immigrant, but Tony is convinced that she likes him. Three months later Tony buys a new car specifically because Elvira hates his car but she's still hostile to him. Tony visits his mother and his sister Gina after several years of separation. Gina is excited to see him but his mother knows that he's a gangster: she refuses his mother and kicks him out. Manny sees Gina and makes a comment that she's beautiful but Tony warns him to stay away from her. Omar and Tony travel to Colombia and meet druglord Alejandro who is looking for a partner in the USA. Tony is there only to watch Omar's back but instead takes over the negotiation, upsetting Omar. When Omar leaves, Alejandro finds an excuse to keep Tony. Alone with Tony, Alejandro tells Tony that Frank was once a police informant and hands Tony binoculars to watch as his men kill Omar hanging him from a helicopter. Frank gets angry at Tony for both thinking that Omar was an informer and negotiating a deal without his consent. Frank tells Tony that he doesn't want to have anything to do with Alejandro and expels Tony from the organization. Tony tries to convince Elvira to dump Frank and marry him. One night he finds Gina in a disco, wearing a sexy dress, dancing with a man. In the same club a corrupt cop, Bernstein, asks for money to protect Tony's business. While they are negotiating, Elvira and Frank walk in. Frank sees him talking to Elvira and threatens him. Tony threatens him back, and Frank leaves with Elvira without fighting. Just then Tony sees Gina and her date getting too intimate and snaps: Tony follows them to the men's bathroom and finds them kissing in a stall. Tony kicks out the man and yells at Gina. When she tells him to mind his own business, Tony slaps her in the face. Manny drives Gina home and explains that Tony wants to protect her. Meanwhile, Tony returns to his table and watches the show of the club. Two of Frank's goons pull out machine guns and try to assassinate him. He manages to escape but is wounded. Tony, Manny and two of their own goons walk into Frank's place. Bernstein is there too. Frank begs for his life on his knees, but Tony orders Manny to kill him. Then Tony executes a defiant Bernstein. Still bleeding, Tony walks straight into Elvira's room. He then watches an advertiser blimp in the sky that displays his favorite motto: "The world is yours". Tony becomes rich selling Alejandro's cocaine, marries Elvira, buys a tiger (as he always said he would) and builds a new mansion/fortress. while Gina and Manny begin a secret affair. But trouble is brewing: both Tony and Elvira are addicted to cocaine, and Tony's increasingly rude manners offend both Elvira and Manny. One day Tony is fooled by agents pretending to be buyers and a videotape camera inside a wall clock films the whole transaction, proof beyond any doubt of tax evasion and money laundering. Tony's own lawyer tells him that there is no way to avoid jail. Alejandro asks to meet with Tony. Alejandro offers political help to Tony if Tony helps his hitman Alberto to kill an investigator who is about to expose Alejandro's illicit business on world television. Back home Tony gets drunk while dining with Elvira and Manny, and again insults both. Elvita snaps, makes a scene in front of everybody and dumps him. Tony staggers out of the restaurant insulting all the customers. Tony travels with Alejandro's hitman to New York where the activist is scheduled to deliver a speech at the United Nations, and helps him to place a remote-controlled bomb under his car. But the activist gets in the car with his wife and children. It is against Tony's moral code to kill women and children. The hitman is about to hit the button when Tony pulls out his gun and shoots him dead. Tony gets another problem: his mother calls that Gina is missing. At the same time Manny has disappeared, which infuriates Tony who was counting on Manny to run his business while out of town. Alejandro calls from Colombia: he is furious that the activist was able to deliver his speech. Furthermore, they found the bomb unexploded under the car, and now the activist is protected by maximum security. Alejandro's career is ruined and he promises to punish Tony for betraying him. Tony's priority now is to find his sister. His mother followed her and knows that she is staying in a fancy house. She thinks that Tony paid for it, but Tony didn't: some other man must be giving her money. Tony arrives at the house and finds Manny with Gina. Tony does not hesitate a second and shoots Manny dead before he can even say a word. Gina then reveals that they were married the day before and it was supposed to be a surprise for him. Tony's men push Gina into the car and they drive Tony and Gina to his mansion. The security cameras show that several men jump the fence and enter the compound, but nobody is watching: Tony is sniffing cocaine nonstop. Alejandro's hitmen kill all of Tony's men and start climbing the walls of the mansion while Tony is still sniffing cocaine. Gina enters Tony's room scantily dressed and hints that Tony always wanted to have sex with her. She pulls out a gun and start advancing towards him shooting and at the same time inviting him to have sex. She only wounds him but one of Alejandro's hitmen guns her down as he enters the room from the balcony. Tony throws him down the balcony and, after crying on Gina's dead body, Tony fights the intruders, one man against a small army. He kills many of them but eventually they kill him. The last shot, from behind, throws him into the swimming pool, on top of which there's a statue with his favorite motto: "The World is Yours". Body Double (1984), virtually a mash-up of the plots of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), and Dial M for Murder (1954), plays with the theme of the voyeur and of the double. A crew is making a film but the director has to suspend shooting because an actor gets paralyzed by claustrophobic fear (he is playing a vampire) and a fire erupts on stage. Jake drives back home and finds his girlfriend Carol in bed with another man. A depressed Jake walks to the bar where he drinks and chats with bartender Doug. Jake has to start looking for a new home. Meanwhile, he is taking an acting class. He is made to close his eyes and talk about his claustrophobia. Another struggling actor taking the class, Sam, feels that Jake is being humiliated by this act and insults the instructor. Sam and Jake walk together to the bar and Jake tells Sam that he is homeless. Sam knows a rich man, Alan, who lives in a fantastic futuristic mansion (the Chemosphere) and is out of town. Jake can stay there for free as long as he waters the plants. Sam shows Jake a secret: through a telescope Jake can spy on a neighbor who every night at the same time performs a sexy dance. After Sam leaves, Jake keeps watching and sees the woman asleep while a man steals her money. She wakes up and they argue. He slaps her and leaves her crying. Jake's agent Frank informs him that he has been fired by the director. At night he watches again into the telescope, and again she dances. Jake notices a worker with a disfigured face who is staring at her window. The following day he happens to see her leaving her home in her car and sees a man in the road who seems to be spying on her and drives behind her. Jake follows them to the garage of a shopping mall and eavesdrops on her when she makes a phone call. Jake keeps following her to a store where she tries on some panties. The store clerk notices that Jake is staring at the customer and even calls the security guard. This distracts Jake who loses her just when he had noticed the myserious man nearby. Jake sees the myserious man following her and rushes into the same elevator. He almost suffers a claustrophobic attack when the elevator fills up with a crowd but that crowd prevents the myserious man from getting into the same elevator: we see that it is the same worker with a disfigured face that Jake noticed before. She throws away the old panties and gets back to her car. Jake picks up the old panties and drives behind her. She stops at a beach motel and seems to wait for someone. He overhears again her phone conversation: she leaves angry that her appointment didn't show up. He tries to warn her that someone has been following her and she seems to think that Jake is just hitting on her. Just then the mysterious man steals her purse. Jake chases him until the man enters a tunnel. Jake stops because of his claustrophonia and sees the man take one object from the purse and leave the rest on the floor. Jake, panting, reaches the purse and reads her name: Gloria. She arrives and realizes that he is having some kind of crisis. He helps him out of the tunnel. As soon as he's out, they suddenly kiss passionately, but then she leaves. At night Jake sees through the telescope that Gloria called a cop, presumably to file a report. But then Jake sees a thief, the mysterious man, enter her apartment and steal something. Jake calls Gloria trying to warn her but instead causes Gloria to get near the man who then tries to strangle her. Jake runs out and across the street to come and help her, but her dog attacks him and this gives time to the assailant to kill her with a powerdrill. Jake calls the police. The detective tells Jake that the mysterious man had the card key to get into Gloria's apartment (the object that he took from her purse). The detective finds Gloria's panties in his jacket and suspects that Jake was Gloria's lover. The detective also informs Jake that Gloria was very rich and married. Normally, the husband would be the prime suspect, but in this case Jake himself testifies that the killer wasn't the husband. That night Jake watches a porn movie in which the actress Holly performs Gloria's sexy dance. Jake calls the studio that produced that porn movie and auditions for a part. He is taken on stage among the actors shooting a music video, which includes a scene with Holly in which she performs the sexy dance for him and lets him touch her and kiss her; and he feels that he is touching Gloria. He pretends to a producer who wants to hire her for his film and takes her to the Chemosphere to impress her. Then he tells her that he knows she danced in Gloria's apartment. He confesses that he is not a producer and Gloria gets angry and wants to leave. Jake gets her to admit that she was hired by someone to dance at night in her apartment. Just then Sam calls, and Holly recognizes the voice of the man who hired her. Jake realizes that Sam wanted him to witness the murder and be the witness that the murder was carried out by the mysterious man, but now Sam suspects that Sam is no other than Gloria's husband, who architected this whole charade to have someone kill Gloria without being suspected of being involved. Someone is watching them with binoculars. While Jake calls the detective to report this theory, Holly tries to hitch a ride outside in the street and is picked up by the mysterious man. The road is closed because of a car accident. Jake gets in his car to drive to the police station and gets stuck behind the car of the mysterious man... and witnesses another murder: the mysterious man seem to kill Holly. Jake tries in vain to get the attention of the cops that are on the scene of the accident but they ignore him. Jake dumps his car and runs after the mysterious man's car. Jake finds the mysterious man: he is digging a grave near a reservoir, and Holly lies unconscious, but alive, on the ground. As they fight, Jake realizes that the man is wearing a mask, and recognizes Sam. Jake throws both Jake and Holly in the grave and starts shoveling dirt on them. Jake is paralyzed by claustrophobia. He has a vision of the director who fired him firing him again because again he is paralyzed on the set. This gives Jake the strength to move. At the same time Gloria's dog breaks out of the car and jumps to strike Jake but instead hits Sam, who falls into the rapids of the reservoir and dies. Sam realizes that Gloria's dog never attacked the mysterious man because the dog knew him well. A clueless Holly wakes up and doesn't believe a word of what Jake tells her. She wants to call the police and report him as a perverted necrophiliac. Some time later, Jake is playing the vampire again in a film by the same director who fired him, and Holly is part of the crew. This time the scene takes place in a bathroom so there is no problem of claustrophobia. There is however a very erotic scene during which he is asked to massage the tits of the actress. And we, the viewers of the film, become the voyeur. Wise Guys (1986) is a stereotypical gangster movie. The Prohibition-era The Untouchables (1987), scripted by David Mamet and based on an old television show, a fictional story about the legal struggle to indict Al Capone, is a western-style take on the gangster genre. The film is hardly groundbreaking. It's a simple story that recycles old stereotypes of heroism, revenge and friendship. The shootout scene on the steps of the train station is clearly a homage to Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. The "baseball bat" scene became in turn famous. The film is set in 1930 when alcohol was illegal in the USA (the "Prohibition") and mobster Al Capone ruled over Chicago by selling alcohol and killing anyone who opposed him, and bribing politicians and cops. A little girl is blown up when she picks up the briefcase left by a Capone goon in a shop after the shopowner refused to buy Capone's beer. A special agent, Elliot, is appointed in charge of fighting Capone. He is passionate and incorruptible. He leads a raid on a warehouse after being tipped about an alcohol shipment, but the raid is humiliating: no alcohol is found, because someone from the police department tipped the gangsters about the raid. He is ridiculed by the press. One night he meets an aging honest Irish cop, Jimmy, who has remained a neighborhood cop because he rejected the general corruption of the police department. Elliot asks him to join his cause because he needs cops he can trust. Jimmy initially refuses, and admits that he fears for his life. Then he walks into Elliot's office dressed in plainclothes and drags Elliot out of the police station because he doesn't trust cops, and tells Elliot that he accepts. Meanwhile a new man, the diminutive and spectacled Oscar, has been assigned to Elliot's operations: he is an accountant who thinks that Al Capone is evading taxes, but Elliot ignores him. Jimmy advises Elliot to hire cops outside the police force, and they pick Giuseppe, an Italian-American who is the best shooter and changed his name to an Anglosaxon name to avoid discrimination. Jimmy tells Elliot that it is not difficult to find the alcohol: it is difficult to find cops willing to attack Capone's business. In fact, Jimmy leads Elliot to a second raid, this time highly successful. Meanwhile, Capone gives a speech at a big meeting of gangsters and concludes it by smashing the head of a traitor with a baseball bat. Elliot is visited by a corrupt alderman who offers him a lot of money to give up his investigations. Elliot kicks him out uncerimoniously. On the way home Elliot is approached by a man inside a car who threatens his family. Elliot quickly packs his wife and daughter and sends them to a secure location. Oscar is still trying to build his case of tax evasion against Capone. Jimmy has a secret informer and tells Elliot where they can catch the gangsters in the act of importing alcohol into the USA. Elliot, Jimmy, Oscar and Giuseppe fly to the Canadian border and coordinate the raid with the mounted police of Canada. The foursome, riding horses like in a western movie, kill several gangsters and arrest the bookkeeper. Oscar, who has proven to be as good with guns as he is with numbers, realizes that a book contains details on all Capone's transactions, enough to send him to jail for tax evasion. The problem is that the book is encrypted. Jimmy terrorizes the bookkeeper so he accepts to collaborate. They seem to have a case but, once at the police station, a Capone goon easily kills Oscar and the bookkeeper. The police chief warns Jimmy that he is risking his life, implying that the police chief knows Capone's moves. Now they don't have a case anymore because they don't have a witness. Jimmy thinks that he can find out where Capone's accountant is, and that would be a top witness. He secretly meets the police chief, who has been his secret informer all along, and beats him up to get the information. He then calls Elliot to meet up. Before Elliot arrives, Al Capone's goons assassinate Jimmy, but Jimmy has time to hand Elliot a train schedule: that's the train on which the accountant will travel. Elliot and Giuseppe wait at the train station for the accountant to show up. A mother pushes the stroller with her baby up the stairs. Elliot helps her but just when he reaches the top of the stairs the accountant shows up, escorted by gangsters. They start shooting at each other while the stroller rolls down the stairs and the mother screams terrified. Elliot cynically takes cover behind the stroller while he shoots at the gangsters. Giuseppe stops the falls of the stroller at the bottom of the stairs and then shoots the gangster who is taking cover behind the accountant. Capone is brought to trial and the accountant testifies that Capone has evaded taxes all the time. However, Elliot notices that Capone seems indifferent, even yawning. Elliot has an officer search Capone's right-arm man only to find that he has a note from the mayor in person protecting him. Elliot would let him go but then notices Jimmy's address written on his matchbox and realizes that this is the killer who killed Jimmy. Elliot chases this gangster on the roof and captures him. The gangster mocks him, convinced that he'll soon be released thanks to Capone's powerful friends, and Elliot pushes him doen the roof. The gangster falls into the street, crashing into a car. Back into the courtroom, Elliot is informed by Giuseppe that Capone has a list of all the jurors, which probably means that all the jurors have been bribed, which explains why Capone was yawning instead of being worried. Elliot demands that the judge takes action. The judge initially refuses to do anything about it but Elliot threatens to involve him in a scandal and then the judge orders that the jury be switched with the jury of another trial. This new improvised jury convicts Capone who is escorted out shouting furious. Then came the gripping anti-war film Casualties of War (1989), based on a real-life atrocity committed by US soldiers in Vietnam, and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), a lame adaptation of Tom Wolfe's novel. Raising Cain (1992) is not interested in the (preposterous) plot, or in the (cartoonish) characters, but only in a fantasy-like sequence of nightmares, flashbacks and delusions. DePalma turns his favorite trick (confusing dream and reality) into an entire film. DePalma steals as usual from Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and Hitchcock's Psycho. Carter and his child accept a ride offered by a neighbor, apparently intrigued by her little daughter in the back seat. Then Carter kills the woman and is panicking when his alter ego appears and helps him dispose of the corpse. At home he is sexually aroused by his wife, Jenny, and constantly monitors their little daughter Amy through a camera. Carter, visibly disturbed, visits his father in a motel, and they discuss what Carter is doing: he is a monster who steals toddlers for a psychological experiment. In a shopping mall his wife has the vision of a gentleman, Jack, like a platonic secret fantasy. Then she walks to a park and tells a friend that she's about to meet Jack. Jack does show up but... Jenny wakes up in the middle of the night because her daughter is crying. Jenny's secret life is only a fantasy, but it is presented as reality. Therefore, it is not clear if Carter's secret life is dream or reality. The evidence is that Carter is a devoted husband and father. And he is also a child psychologist who has taken two years off to study his own daughter. Jenny is a physician who fell in love (or dreams of having fallen in love) with a patient's husband, Jack, but they are still haunted by the guilt that the woman died while they were kissing. Jenny drives to Jack's apartment at night and makes love to him. She has an accident on the way back and is killed, but... she wakes up in the middle of the night. The whole story about Jack feels like a soap opera. Carter strangles her in bed... but Carter is following her while she walks hand in hand with Jack in the park. Cain shows up behind a tree and promises to take care of the unfaithful wife, who is having an orgasm. Cain sends Carter home and steals a baby from a babysitter. Then kills the babysitter and puts the corpse in the trunk of Jack's car, in order to frame him. Carter wakes up near his wife who is sleeping... Carter kills his wife letting her drown inside the car in the lake at sunrise. Jack wakes up alone in his apartment and finds the present that Jenny left for him in a drawer. Jenny and Amy disappear and Carter calls the police. He tells them that a man was hanging out at the playground even if he did not have a child. The police suspect that a serial killer is killing women and children in the park, and Carter is trying to frame Jack. A retired officer, Mac, warns the detectives about Carter's father who twenty years before was suspected of stealing babies. An old student of Carter's father explains what the mad scientist was trying to achieve: create a multiple-personality being. Stealing babies would make sense because he needed more "cases" in order to complete the experiment. Carter/Cain is obviously the result of his father's experiment. The police find the corpse in Jack's car and arrests him. At home Carter sees via the camera that Jenny is in the house. She must have survived. She attacks him with a knife and forces him to confess that Amy is at his father's house. Jenny has always believed that his father was dead. The police arrest him, but he refuses to reveal where Amy is kept. His father's student hypnotizes him and discovers many more personalities hidden inside his mind. Jenny sees the woman leave the police building and follows her, unaware that Carter has taken her clothes and her hair and left her unconscious in the police room. Carter, dressed like the woman, drives to the motel where his father lives. Jenny follows him inside the elevator armed with a knife. The elevator door opens and Carter's father appears holding Amy and a gun. The police and Jack arrive while the old man is declaring "I don't even exist" and defiantly forcing the woman to put down the knife. But Carter attacks him from behind with the same knife and kills him. The old man drops the baby from the second story, but Jack runs and grabs her. Carter walks away undisturbed, since nobody recognizes him. Jenny moves in with Jack and life seems back to normal. But one day at the park Amy runs away and claims that daddy is there. Jenny laughs, but Carter, still dressed like a woman, is right behind her. One long delirium tremens. The last scene is reminiscent of Dario Argento's Tenebrae Carlito's Way (1993) is a gangster-movie inspired by the film noir of the 1940s, transposed into the discos of the 1970s. The protagonist is a man who tries to redeem himself but cannot escape his destiny. A very minor movie in DePalma's career. A so-so study of character, with a predictable plot and forced ending. The story is told by Carlito himself as he is dying after someone shot him. Released from jail, drug-dealer Carlito (Al Pacino) is determined to stay out of crime. He runs a disco (his goal is to make enough money to retire at the Bahamas) and is disgusted by what drugs have done to his friends. He regains the affection of his stripper girlfriend, keeps his bodyguard from killing a hothead from the Bronx (who may remind him of his own youthful arrogance), but things go berserk on all fronts. His attorney is in trouble with the mob and Carlito agrees to help him run away on a boat. The attorney is eventually killed and Carlito is next on the list. Carlito decides to elope with his girlfriend and gives her an appointment at the train station. But Carlito is chased by the gangsters into the station, where he manages to kill all of them, but right when he is about to board the train the old punk from the Bronx shows up and shoots him. Carlito has been betrayed by his faithful body guard, the last in a long series of betrayals. Carlito is dying. He concludes the story and closes his eyes. Mission Impossible (1996), scripted by David Koepp, is a is based on the old television series of 1966-73 and his biggest commercial success. The detective movie and political thriller Snake Eyes (1998), written again by David Koepp and photographed as usual by Stephen Burum, is a virtuoso stylized showcase of dazzling camera work. It opens with a lengthy continuous shot, in which Nicholas Cage has to memorize a long sequence like in theater and moves from environment to environment, always followed by an acrobatic camera that manifests an almost supernatural choreography. A lot of clues are planted during this long shot. Technical wizardry mixes with narrative ingenuity. It also has flashbacks that are optical effects: they seem to be part of the present. The plot in the present is simple and linear but the flashbacks create a complex patchwork of realities. The flashbacks also alter our perception of what truly happened, like in Rashomon. DePalma also uses the split-screen technique to further destabilize the narrative. Fast-paced and suspenseful like classic DePalma cinema, the film is, unfortunately, ruined by an awful, improbable and even ridiculous (happy) ending. The film, set in Atlantic City (the Las Vegas of the East Coast) opens on a stormy night as a smiling female TV reporter, wrapped in a raincoat in front of an arena, announces the big boxing event of the night. After a few seconds we realize that we are watching a test because the director asks her to do it again. The camera moves to the left and introduces us to Rick, a flamboyant, frenzied, egotistic and corrupt cop who is married but has a girlfriend. He is friend with the TV reporter Lou, who is going to broadcast the boxing match. The camera has now taken us inside the arena and keeps following Rick as he walks around the arena, meets friends, walks up and down stairs, and tries to meet his idol boxer Tyler in person. Rick corners a drug dealer, beats him up, takes his money and bets it on Tyler, but the bookie doesn't one a bill that is covered in blood (the blood of the drug dealer). He's a womanizer: he gives his business card to a sexy cheerleader who is waving a sign with the number seven. Now the camera gives us a tour of the arena where thousands of people are cheering. The camera keeps moving right and left to show us what is going on. Rick meets his best friend, a navy commander, Kevin, who is in charge of security for the defense secretary. Kevin has reserved a seat for Rick near the politician. Rick is a fan of boxer Tyler and focuses on the match. Kevin gets up to check a sexy redhead wearing red. Another woman, wearing a blonde wig, Julia, sits next to the secretary and gives him something. Rick is transfixed as Tyler, against all odds, is beaten by the opponent. Just then someone shots the politician and a second shot almost kills the woman. Rick jumps to protect her but she runs away, leaving behind her glasses and her wig. Backstage, Kevin shoots the sniper dead. Thousands of people rush to the exits. Julia hides in the crowd. Julia manages to sneak into the nearby casino and change clothes. The only problem is that she can't see well because she lost her glasses: we see blurred everything she stares at. Kevin feels guilty: he was in charge of protecting the politician, but he abandoned his place. Rick convinces him to take credit for killing the assassin and steer the investigation so that nobody will focus on Kevin's negligence. They are best friends. Lou bribes Rick to obtain an exclusive interview on what happened. Rick has doubts on what happened on the ring: he can't accept that Tyler lost. Rick watches a video taken by a camera and sees that Tyler was never hit: he just pretended. Rick confronts Tyler and Tyler admits that he accepted to lose the match so that someone would clear his debt at the casino. The redhead is the one who paid him. Meanwhile, Julia has morphed into a hooker at the casino. Kevin has ordered all doors closed. She can't get out. Rick and Kevin want to find the two mysterious woman: the redhead who distracted Kevin and the blonde who approached the politician. Rick senses that Kevin is hiding something and Kevin confesses that the politician was to approve a top-secret project for a new kind of missile defense system. A flashback shows what happened backstage as Kevin followed the redhead and ended up near the shooter. Kevin still can't forgive himself. Rick looks for the redhead using the many cameras of the casino. Kevin, however, walks away and meets the redhead and another man who was part of the plot: Kevin is the mastermind of the conspiracy. These two have become a problem: Kevin shoots them dead, coldly. Julia in the casino sees Kevin on a television screen and is terrified. She pretends to be a hooker and seduces a guest to take him to his room. Meanwhile, Rick is watching all the cameras, looking for the redhead, but instead recognizes the mysterious Julia. At the same time, Kevin too is looking for Julia. Julia and her man take the elevator with Kevin, but Kevin notices a camera in the elevator and doesn't get out at their floor. Julia is terrified and hide inside the guest's room while Kevin walks around looking for her. The camera flies over the rooms of the hotel and shows us who's inside each room. Rick and Kevin don't meet although they are at the same floor, each unaware that the other is looking for the same woman. Rick finds the guest's room thanks to his buddy at the control room who identifies him. Rick grabs Julia and takes her to the stairwell. Now she tells him her version of the events. Julia claims that she works at the Pentagon and has unveiled that the missile defense system is a scam. She claims to have seen Kevin walk backstage with the redhead and then talk to the killer. Julia then took Kevin's seat and was warning the defense secretary when he was shot. We see a split screen that shows us the conversation that she had with the politician and that Kevin was watching them from a distance. We now see in the split screen Kevin when he killed the killer. Rick is distraught that he scolds Julia for becoming a whistleblower: if she had minded her own business, now Rick wouldn't have this awful situation of knowing that his best friend is traitor. Rick makes her cry: she did her job and risked her life. We then see a discussion between Kevin and the industrialist who would make money out of the missile defense system. We learn that Kevin's plan was to kill both the politician and the whistleblower. The plan can be saved if Kevin kills Julia and bribes his best friend Kevin into silence. Nick takes Julia to a safe warehouse and locks her inside. He then turns to his friend in the control room to watch videos taken by a new camera. He sees proof that Julia told him the truth: Kevin was in cahoots with the assassin. Kevin arrives and finds Rick watching the video. Kevin admits the whole conspiracy and begs Rick to understand that it was done in the interest of the country: the missile defense system is crucial. Kevin offers Rick a huge amount of money if Rick tells him where Julia is hiding. Rick is a corrupt cop but has never killed anyone and refuses. Kevin takes Rick to a secluded room and has Tyler torture him. Rick still doesn't talk. Then Kevin uses a smarter system: he lets Rick escape but after placing a transmitter on his coat. Kevin follows Rick as a bloodied Rick staggers towards the warehouse where Julia is locked. The storm has become a full-fledge hurricane. Rick takes advantage of the tidal waves to escape with Julia. Somehow Rick tipped off the police who arrive just in time to save him and Julia. Kevin kills himself rather than surrender to the police. Rick is awarded a medal as the hero who defeated the conspiracy, but later his corruption is discovered and he is sentenced to prison. Before leaving for the prison, he is visited by Julia who promises to wait for him: both his wife and his girlfriend left him. The third-rate sci-fi movie Mission to Mars (2000) recycles stereotypes from Kubrick's 2001. Femme Fatale (2002), his best erotic thriller since his glory days, has an elaborate and even convoluted plot (alas, not always plausible). A black man wearing a suit and tie enters the room where a blond is watching an old movie on television and rehearse the heist that they are about to carry out. He then slaps her on the face and insults her to make sure she concentrates on the plan. It's the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival and television broadcasts the stars walks on the red carpet, in particular supermodel Veronica who is wearing very expensive jewelry. One of the reporters taking pictures of the stars is the blond, with a press tag that says Laure. Laure invites the supermodel to the bathroom. In the bathroom Laure and the supermodel kiss passionately while the black man and his team set in action. While the two girls are having sex in the bathroom, the black man picks up all the jewels that Laure drops on the floor and replaces them with fakes. Everything goes well until a security guard enters the bathroom. The black man is forced to attack and is wounded. Laure takes the jewels from him and runs away while Veronica realizes that she has been robbed. Black Tie has one accomplice, Racine, who escapes. One day Laure, now wearing a black wig, is being followed and photographed while she is trying to buy a fake passport. The photographer doesn't try to hide and is satisfied of the pictures he took. She walks into a church and people recognize her as a woman named Lily. (A split screen shows us the photographer developing the pictures while Lily is in church). Laure takes a taxi to the airport. Racine, wanting to get the jewels back, finds her before she can buy the fake passport and throws her over a handrail. She falls and loses consciousness. The couple who called her Lily have followed her and rescue her. They think she is their good friend Lily who disappeared mysteriously with a gun, and take her to the luxurious apartment of this Lily. Laure is initially mesmerized but then decides to explore the place and finds a passport and an air ticket to the USA, which solve her problem to leave the country. Ecstatic, she takes a bath. Just then the real Lily walks in, sobbing. Laure spies from behind the shower curtains. Lily writes a suicide note (we learn that she lost her husband and her child), loads the gun and shoots herself. On the long flight to the USA she has another stroke of luck: she meets a wealthy politician. She seduces him claiming that her child just died. Years later, Laure/Lily (with a French passport) is married to Bruce, and Bruce is appointed ambassador to France. Someone in the press is curious about Bruce's wife, a mysterious Frenchwoman of whom there are no photos. A professional paparazzo, Nicolas, is paid to take pictures of her. Nicolas fakes to be hit by the ambassador's limo and takes a picture of Laure/Lily when she opens the door. The embassy's security staff tracks down Nicolas and threatens him but Nicolas has already sold the pictures. Meanwhile, Black Tie is released from jail after seven years, still determined to find her and take his revenge. Black Tie and Racine reunite and track down Laure's best friend, a sexy girl who has been fencing diamonds. They kidnap this girl (we don't see her face) and, when she refuses to cooperate, they kill her. Just then they see a big poster of "Lily" on the wall, advertising the article in the magazine. Nicolas is summoned to the embassy about the photograph. Before he walks in, he sees Lily drive away and decides to follow her. Her head is injured. Nicolas sees her enter a strip-tease club and exchange something for a lot of money, and takes pictures of everything. What he doesn't know that someone from the embassy is following him. He follows her into a hotel. He finds an excuse to enter her room and search it. He finds a gun and decides to help her: she looks scared, beaten and suicidal. Lily tells him that her husband abuses her. He confesses that he is Nicolas, the one who took her picture. They hang out, always followed by the embassy bodyguard. She invites him in the hotel room and seduces him. She finds an excuse to give him her car keys, her purse and the gun. Then she calls the police and reports a car theft. The police arrests him. He realizes that Lily has framed him to make it look like a kidnapping. The police inspector thinks he has a simple case but surprisingly the ambassador asks that the investigation be stopped, claiming that his wife is doing well. When the inspector insists on seeing Lily, the embassy refuses, claiming that they want to protect her privacy. Nicolas is released. Lily makes contact with him and somehow sends a ransom note to the embassy from his computer (not clear how) asking to deliver the money on a bridge. Nicolas has no choice but cooperate: if Nicolas refuses to go along with the ransom, she'll report him to the police as a kidnapper. She tests him in a night club where she flirts with (and strips for) another man in front of him. She enjoys it when he snaps and attacks the man with a cue stick. Then she seduces him (Nicolas) and asks him to have sex on the billiard table. She doesn't know that he is taping their conversations. When the ambassador shows up with the money, Nicolas tells him the truth and shows him the tape, but Lily coldly pulls out her gun and kills her husband. Then she shoots Nicolas too, puts the gun in his hand, and is about to walk away with the tape when... Black Tie and Racine attack her from behind. Black Tie bangs her head violently against a pillar and, thinking she died, throws her in the river. We see her sinking in the river and then floating up naked, which doesn't make sense, and then... emerging from a bath tub: it was just a dream that started when she was taking the bath in Lily's bathroom. Just like in her dream, Lily does enter the house and tries to kill herself, but this time Laure stops her and then tells her that she just dreamed the future and wants to change it. Laure tells Lily to take the plane to the USA and predicts that she will meet a nice man named Bruce. Laure then hitchhikes on a truck and gives her necklace to him. Seven years later, Nicolas receives the same call offering him money to take a picture of the wife of the ambassador, except that this time she has three children. Just then Nicolas sees Laure at a cafe with her best friend (the one who was killed by Black Tie in the dream) and takes pictures (shown in a split screen) of Laure walking away with a briefcase full of money. The friend is Veronica. We see in a flashback (shown in a split screen) that Laure and Veronica had plotted to steal the diamonds together. The scene repeats: Veronica is kidnapped by Black Tie and Racine. But this time it is not Veronica who dies under a truck but Black Tie and Racine. The truck is driven by the man who received the necklace from Laure seven years earlier. Veronica walks away unharmed. While she is staring at the scene from afar, Laure is mugged but the thieves only steal her purse, not the briefcase. Nicolas, who too has witnessed the accident, runs to help Laure and tells her that she looks familiar. She too has recognized him and tells him that they met before in her dreams. His prolific career continued with The Black Dahlia (2006), an adaptation of the James Ellroy novel, the anti-war movie Redacted (2007), based on a real-life massacre perpetrated by US soldiers in Iraq, notable for being shot with a combination of security cameras, (fake) documentary footage, mobile phones, head-mounted cameras, Passion (2013), a stylish remake of Alain Corneau's erotic thriller Love Crime, and the mediocre Domino (2019), that recasts his thrillers into the age of Islamist terrorism. Mr Hughes (2000), a bio-pic of the legendary tycoon Howard Hughes, scripted by David Koepp, was never made.