The Untouchables

The film's opening featurette is an honest, insightful account of the coming together of script and cast for the making of this Eighties classic. Brian De Palma's career up to the point of The Untouchables is covered briefly and criticisms are made that set the tone for this no-nonsense look at how the production came to be.

Production Stories focuses on the filming of The Untouchables, taking us through production design, camera work and so forth. Although it ends abruptly, this is an otherwise enjoyable mini-doc and covers just about everything you would be interested in. Old and new footage are mixed together and the ageing of director De Palma is depressing to see. Well worth watching.

The featurette on genre loses sight of its purpose and drifts off the point into De Palma's technique and other production issues that are worthwhile but categorised inappropriately. Nonetheless, like all the other featurettes, it is interesting and helpful for aspiring filmmakers.

The Classic featurette details the scoring of the picture and other aspects of postproduction. Again, certain elements are misplaced, as the main purpose here seems to be the success of the film. The Classic rounds off the four "looking back" featurettes, and whilst all are thoroughly enjoyable, they have been cut from the same cloth and could have made more of an impact if they had been combined into one single documentary.

The Original featurette does what most do, which is to focus on the characters and storyline. I have always found these pointless and irritating, but this one has the charm of nostalgia, although has nothing on the preceding four.

A well put together DVD, no deleted scenes, nor commentary, but a very enjoyable watch. The four featurettes should have been combined into a single exhilarating documentary, but this disc's heart is in the right place. Informative, honest and captivating, with a glossy print and throttling sound that does justice to Ennio Morricone's phenomenal score, it is certainly worth adding to your collection.