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The Untouchables is a 1987 American crime film directed by Brian De Palma, produced by Art Linson, and written by David Mamet. It stars Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith, Andy García, Robert De Niro and Sean Connery. Set in Chicago in 1930, the film follows Eliot Ness (Costner) as he forms the Untouchables team to bring Al Capone (De Niro) to justice during Prohibition. The screenplay is loosely based on Ness and Oscar Fraley's 1957 book The Untouchables and the real-life events it was based on, though most of its plot is fictionalized. The Grammy Award–winning score was composed by Ennio Morricone and features period music by Duke Ellington. The Untouchables premiered on June 2, 1987, in New York City, and went into general release on June 3, 1987, in the United States. The film grossed $106.2 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for four Academy Awards; Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. Plot In 1930, during Prohibition, the notorious gangland kingpin Al Capone supplies illegal liquor and nearly controls all of Chicago. Bureau of Prohibition agent Eliot Ness has been tasked with halting Capone's activities, but his first attempt at a liquor raid fails due to corrupt policemen alerting Capone. He then encounters veteran Irish-American officer James Malone, who opposes the rampant corruption and offers to help Ness, suggesting they find a man from the police academy who has not yet come under Capone's influence and still believes in the idealistic aspects of law enforcement. They recruit Italian-American trainee George Stone (birth name Giuseppe Petri) for his superior marksmanship and integrity. Joined by accountant Oscar Wallace, assigned to Ness from Washington, D.C., they successfully raid a Capone liquor warehouse and start gaining positive publicity, with the press dubbing them "The Untouchables". Capone later kills the warehouse manager with a baseball bat to warn his other subordinates. Discovering that Capone has not filed an income tax return for four years, Wallace suggests trying to build a tax evasion case against him, as Capone's network keeps him well-insulated from his other crimes. A crooked alderman offers Ness a bribe to drop his investigation, but Ness refuses. After Capone's enforcer Frank Nitti threatens to kill Ness's wife Catherine and their daughter, Ness immediately moves them to a safe house. In a subsequent raid on the Canadian border, Ness and his team intercept an incoming liquor shipment, killing several gangsters and capturing a Capone bookkeeper named George, whom they eventually persuade to testify against his employer. Back in Chicago, Nitti, dressed as a policeman, murders Wallace and George in the elevator of the police station and leaves a taunting message for Ness. Ness confronts Capone at the Lexington Hotel after the murders, but Malone intervenes, urging Ness to focus on persuading the district attorney not to dismiss the charges against Capone. Realizing that police chief Mike Dorsett sold out Wallace and George, Malone forces Dorsett to reveal where Capone's accountant, Walter Payne, is hiding. That evening, one of Capone's men breaks into Malone's apartment; Malone chases him out with a shotgun, but Nitti ambushes him with a Thompson submachine gun. Shortly afterwards, Ness and Stone arrive to find Malone mortally wounded; before he dies, Malone shows them which train Payne will take out of town. As the duo await Payne's arrival at Union Station, Ness sees a young mother with two suitcases and her child in a carriage laboriously climbing the lobby steps. Ness ultimately decides to assist her, but the gangsters guarding Payne appear as Ness and the woman reach the top of the stairs, and a bloody shootout occurs. Though outnumbered, Ness and Stone manage to capture Payne alive and kill all his escorts, keeping both the mother and child unharmed. Later, when Payne testifies at Capone's trial, Ness observes that Capone appears strangely calm, and that Nitti is wearing a gun in the courtroom. The bailiff removes Nitti and searches him, finding a note from Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson which effectively permits him to carry the weapon. However, noticing Nitti possesses a matchbook with Malone's address written inside, Ness realizes that Nitti killed Malone. Panicked, Nitti shoots the bailiff before fleeing to the courthouse roof, where Ness captures him. After Nitti insults the memory of Malone and gloats that he will escape conviction for the murder, an enraged Ness pushes Nitti off the roof to his death, avenging Wallace and Malone. Stone gives Ness a list, taken from Nitti's coat, which shows that the jurors in the trial are all on Capone's payroll. Behind closed doors, Ness persuades the judge to switch Capone's jury with one hearing an unrelated divorce case by telling the judge that he is on Capone's payroll, and they can prove it. This prompts Capone's lawyer to enter a guilty plea, although an outraged Capone violently objects. Capone is later convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. On the day Capone begins serving his sentence, Ness closes up his office, giving Malone's St. Jude medallion and callbox key to Stone as a farewell present. As Ness leaves the police station, a reporter asks him what he will do upon the probable repeal of Prohibition, to which he replies, "I think I'll have a drink." Cast Additionally, the film's cast includes Del Close as John O'Shea; a corrupt alderman working for Capone, Vito D'Ambrosio as the "Bowtie Driver"; one of Capone's henchman, Steven Goldstein as "Scoop"; a reporter, Robert Swan as the Mountie Captain, Peter Aylward as Chicago PD Lieutenant Anderson, Don Harvey as Officer Preseuski, Tony Mockus Sr. as Judge James H. Wilkerson; who oversees Capone's tax evasion trial, and Patrick Billingsley as a court baliff. An uncredited Clifton James portrays District Attorney George E. Q. Johnson, who prosecutes Capone. Background Development Ned Tanen spent years trying to obtain the rights to Eliot Ness's life story while working as an executive at Universal Pictures in the 1970s and the 1980s. After becoming head of motion picture productions at Paramount Pictures, which owned the film and television rights to Ness's memoir The Untouchables, Tanen immediately hired Art Linson to begin producing a film adaptation. Linson was not interested in adapting the ABC television series based on Ness's book, and sought to create a more "serious, authentic" depiction of Ness's career in Chicago. Linson hired playwright David Mamet to compose an original script for the film. Most of Mamet's screenplay was used, but director Brian De Palma slightly rewrote some scenes during production in order to incorporate new locations. For instance, the scene paying homage to the Potemkin Stairs from Battleship Potemkin (1925.... Discover the Phil Capone popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Phil Capone books.