Classic Movie

Here endeth the lesson

	Capone towers over all, wielding baseball bats and punchy metaphors with equal ferocity

The plot: Prohibition-era Chicago is a buzzing hive of corruption decorated with dollar bills and tommy guns. Iniquity and evil rule the city of Big Shoulders and every judge, fudge and drudge is eating out of one man's hand - Alfonse Capone (de Niro). He's the sole reason Chicago can let its hair down on Friday night, and everyone from High Court judges to hotel porters love him for it. For one man though – boy-scout copper, Mr Eliot Ness (Costner) – this rule of fear and extortion must stop. And his band of 'untouchables' are the ones to do it.

Why's it a classic? It's Ness's journey, but he's not the reason why Brian de Palma's movie is so great. Apart from his unswerving necessity to 'uphold the law' and the fact that a bomb victim's mum comes to have a cry in his office, Ness's personal motivations are unclear. It's the cast around him that give the film its colour. Connery won a Best Support gong for his turn, Charles Martin Smith is the right side of geek as the Agency's accountant, Andy Garcia is moody marksman personified and Capone towers over all, wielding baseball bats and punchy metaphors with equal ferocity. Add to this Ennio Morricone's score, the incredible train station sequence and the general seductiveness of 1930s Chicago and you've got something with a little more kick than your average gangster flick. Down the hatch, sunshine.