This capitalist perspective is directly inspired by the American Dream and Tony has taken this on and ran with it, except he is clearly a criminal and is using criminal means to get his end result. But if America preaches its 'The World is Yours' attitude - if-you-work-for-it, you-can-achieve-it attitude, inevitably the same logic will be applied in other fields, such as criminal enterprises. Not to mention the inevitability in others being harmed in the process - Capitalism only works when their are others who purchase the products while you, yourself, sell it. His paranoia and obsession with security at the end is a product of his drug taking - ignoring Frank Lopezs' (Robert Loggia) number two rule: Don't get high on your own supply. Maybe he would have continued buying and selling, in larger and larger quantities if he didn't take his product because - as we are all aware - many products are unnecessary, even harmful, but is still sold. I'll re-read that paragraph because it goes on a little bit - there are bound to be some inaccuracies and contradictions.
Noting his paranoia, his first discussion of this is prior to shooting his boss Frank Lopez, whom he discovers has attempted to kill him. It is ironic that in this instance, his reason for killing Lopez was due to his lack of loyalty. Tony is waiting for the phone call to confirm Lopezs' fate, gun in hand, and when Lopez asks why he is carrying the gun, Camonte replies it i because of "how do you say it - paranoia". So Tony is using paranoia as a false excuse for his violence before revealing his true reason for carrying the gun - killing Lopez. But it is his actual paranoia - brought on by cocaine - that destroys him whereby he kills Manny (Steven Bauer) and Elvira (Michelle Pheiffer) leaves and then, to top it off, his lack of loyalty to Sosa (parallel to Lopez methinks) forces Sosa to completely obliterate Tony as Tony, high on cocaine, fails to stop them.
To close, it is worth noting how Tony is completely insane and a complete sociopath - he is a liar (lying to his Mother about his earnings), he beats women (hitting his sister and attempts to hit Elvira), he's a murderer (of not only a heap of people - but even his completely loyal friend Manny), he is disloyal (going back on what Sosa told him to do - even though we may agree with his decision, he still disobeys Sosa's instructions and murders Sosa's trusted bodyguard also!), he's a complete hypocrite (Though he won't kill children directly, he is oblivious to the lives he has destroyed indirectly - namely his sisters life), he drinks, smokes and takes a lot of drugs. There is literally nothing he has not done. He looks good though doing all this. Therefore 14 year-old's wear their 'Say hello to my little friend' t-shirt while playing the computer game.
Interesting link again to UNKLE (see review for THX 1138...) as that speech discussed in the first paragraph - "say goodnight to the bad guy" - is used by UNKLE on one of their albums: "Edit Music for a film". Shame UNKLE didn't do the soundtrack to 'Scarface' itself, as the music has dated so badly - maybe it works to some extent, accentuating the excess and tone of the eighties with the synthesizers. We have Giorgio Moroder to thank for that. (Also, turns out that the 'Omen [Reprise]' from The Prodigy's album Invaders Must Die was inspired by Vangelis and Moroder's Scarface soundtrack according to Liam Howlett himself! Check it out: http://www.vimeo.com/3467408)
It finishes so beautifully - as no doubt we all know - whereby Scarface is gunned down in excess, like his life. Prior to this he wanders out on his balcony and the cameras looks up and he looks as if he is in his own Greek tragedy - as indeed he is, killed inside his tower as he wanders on his Greek set seeing the 'cock-a-roaches' gather around.
After-thought
With all that discussion on the soundtrack I saw it in Fopp for £2. Initially hesitant, I thought that it was a great soundtrack that was purely eighties and set a clear tone. Rating 'Push it to the limit' with five stars it turns out that only that song is any good - the rest I have listened to very rarely. Shame.
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