FAQ

Arrogant Cuban thug Tony Montana (Al Pacino) immigrates to Miami, Florida. Upon arrival, Tony and his best friend, partner in crime and womanizer Manny Riberia (Steven Bauer) are sent to a detention camp called "Freedomtown". After Tony willingly eliminates Emilio Rebenga (Roberto Contreras) Fidel Castro's former assistant, Tony, Manny and their cronies are released. After Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham) right-hand man of cocaine kingpin Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) whom hired Tony to kill Rebenga sends Tony, Manny and their cronies to do a drug deal with the Colombians which goes wrong and Angel Fernandez (Pepe Serna) is brutally killed. Tony and Manny meet Frank Lopez and become his employees and Tony develops forbidden romantic feelings for Lopez's girlfriend Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer). But, things begin to change when Tony reunites with his beautiful sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantino) and Tony meets the ruthless and dangerous Bolivian drug lord Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar) and makes a unauthorized business deal which displeases Frank whom warns Tony about Sosa. After an assassination attempt on his own life and discovering Frank sent them which Tony kills him in retaliation, Tony takes over and becomes the new cocaine kingpin. But, things soon start going out of control when Frank becomes a cocaine addict and Sosa sends Tony to NYC to assassinate a journalist, but Tony refuses to kill him and things get much worse when Tony returns to Miami and kills Manny when he learns Manny and Gina got married and Manny broke his promise to Tony that he wouldn't get sexually involved with Gina and Tony brings Gina back to his mansion unaware Sosa has sent an army of assassins to the mansion to get rid of Tony. Edit

Scarface (1983) is a remake of Scarface (1932), which was adapted by American playwright and screenwriter Ben Hecht from the novel Scarface (1930), written by American author Maurice Coons (1902-1930) under the pen name Armitage Trail. The original film, however, is set in Chicago during the era of Prohibition (1920 to 1933) and features Italian-American mobsters (not explicitly identified as Mafia). Edit

This film never goes into detail about this theme. Some people lean towards a yes, since the 1932 film portrays Tony as having feelings of incest for his sister. A logical answer would be that it is very unlikely that Tony is sexually attracted to Gina because in the film, Tony expresses interest in conceiving children with Elvira, telling her how beautiful he thinks she is and wanting to marry her. Most viewers agree that Tony is overprotective of Gina, refusing to let her have a boyfriend and threatening to kill anyone who expresses interest in her. At the end of the film Gina herself suggests Tony must indeed want her because he can't stand for another man to be with her. Tony has a genuine look of confusion on his face and even asks what she's talking about. Therefore he likely did not have sexual feelings towards her. Most likely he didn't want her to be around his kind of people, drug dealers, low-lifes, etc. but of course by trying his hardest to keep her away from such things, pushed her even closer to them. However numerous times in the film we see Tony almost leering at her in a way a brother would not normally act. It seems as though he is attracted to his sister. When these feelings arise they anger and confuse Tony causing him to become violent numerous times; i.e. shooting Manny and beating up Gina's boyfriend in the bathroom of the club. This combined with the fact that the original film displays similar themes does point to Tony's unhealthy attraction to Gina. Edit

Tony lied about his mother being dead because he knew that if he had told the immigration agents that his mother was alive and living in America, they would very likely have contacted her for information about Tony, and she would no doubt tell them what a bad person she thought he was, therefore refusing him entry into the United States. Edit

Yes. In 2006, two games based directly on the film were made—Scarface: The World Is Yours for Playstation 2, Xbox, PC and Wii; and Scarface: Money. Power. Respect. for the Playstation Portable. In addition to those games, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) takes a lot of inspiration from the film. The look and feel of Vice City closely resembles Miami as it looks in the film. The city's nightclub—the Malibu Club—is almost identical to the club Tony visits, and the player can visit a hidden bathroom with blood on the wall next to the bathtub—an obvious reference to the chainsaw scene. Also the Diaz mansion that Tommy, the protagonist, later inherits is obviously heavily inspired by Tony's mansion. The story incorporates a lot of features from the film (such as working your way to the top of the city's crime ranks, and even taking over a mansion from a former boss. The mansion a near exact replica of Tony's). Although not primarily inspired by the classic film, Grand Theft Auto V has a protagonist whose "special ability" is reminiscent if not inspired by Tony's resilience and adeptness when defending his home at the end of Scarface. Edit

In order to receive a rating of 18 or lower by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and be screened publicly in the UK accordingly back in the day, initial releases there were trimmed. Brian De Palma's action classic was cut for the VHS release by CIC and so was the First Edition by Universal. Both versions lacks one scene, namely the chainsaw butchery. The theatrical version in the UK was equally cut. Any other edition in the UK is uncut. Edit

Sosa's associate saw Omar at lunch and recognized him as a police informer. At least, that's what he tells Tony.

It is also to send a signal to everyone around, this is what happens if you snitch or do something you're not supposed to.

It could be that Sosa saw that Tony was going to help him shift more product than Omar would allow him to, and hence he takes Omar out of the picture.

As for why Omar was hanged from a helicopter, it's likely that the helicopter is what they used to get to and from the airstrip. So they boarded the chopper, took off to keep Omar feeling at ease. Once in the air, they beat Omar and threw him out of the chopper. Edit

Tony lives by a code. Tony is willing to kill those who wronged him or those he's hired to kill. He will not kill innocent women or children. Tony's target was the journalist and not the wife and children. Had Sosa ordered Tony to kill the wife and children, Tony would likely have flat-out refused the order. Edit

Because he was hired to. This is clearly explained. Edit

Who says they didn't? A chainsaw may be a peculiar sound coming from a beach front motel room, but most people would probably dismiss it as someone doing renovations or coming from behind the motel (such as trimming back tree branches). Angel's screams were muffled by the duct tape on his mouth and the TV being turned up loud. Otherwise people may have just decided to mind their own business. Edit

The events of Tony being sent to America from Cuba happen in May, 1980, and Tony is sent to "freedom town" it's unknown how long he was there, but likely 2 or 3 weeks. Once being released from "Freedom Town", Tony starts working for Frank within a few weeks of this. We can assume he worked for Frank for about a year before their falling out, then Tony builds his empire. In the scene before the inauguration of the beauty salon, where the Montana Travel Co. building and the "World is Yours" fountain are showed, behind the trees, you can see a huge advertisement for the new Corvette C4 in red color. That ad started to be published in late1983. Then, in the last moments of the chasing on NYC, there's a bus with an advertisement on the side: "There's only one way to play it" from Kool Cigarettes, and that ad was last posted in 1984. So you can say the movie covers at least 3.5 years. Edit

• In the '32 film, the character is named Tony Camonte, son of Italian immigrants. In the '83 film he's Tony Montana, a direct immigrant from Cuba.

• In the '32 film Tony has a relatively close relationship with his mother and siblings, and people openly question his affections for his sister Francesca. In the '83 movie, Tony is estranged from his family, his mother despises him and he becomes close with his sister Gina. It is left ambiguous, however, as to whether he had sexual feelings for her.

• In '32, Tony is a bootlegger of alcohol during prohibition in Chicago. In '83, Tony is a drug kingpin in Miami.

• In both films, Tony steals his boss' girlfriend (Elvira in '83 and Poppy in '32), which prompts his boss (Frank in '83 and Johnny Lovo in '32) to try and have Tony killed.

• Tony suspects but can't prove that his boss tried to kill him in both films, so he uses the same ploy to find out by having one of his men call the boss at his office and pretend to be the hitman. The boss' response gives away the fact that they did order the hit. The dialogue is similar in both movies.

• In both movies, when Tony goes to claim his prize (being the boss' girl). He looks out the window and sees a sign that says "the world is yours". In the '32 movie, it is on a billboard. In the '83 movie it is on a passing blimp.

• There is then a montage of Tony building his empire in both movies, though the '83 film spends much more time with Tony on top of the world (as the movie's runtime is an hour longer than the '32 film).

• In both movies Tony finds one of his trusted associates with his sister, at which point Tony snaps and kills him, only then discovering that they had just gotten married.

• In the '32 film, Tony's sister gets over him murdering her husband very quickly and decides to help him make a stand against the police in Tony's second floor apartment hideout. She is shot through the window by the cops. In the '83 film Tony's sister becomes hysterical, starts shooting at Tony, and is gunned down by a hitman hiding on the balcony.

• In the '32 film, Tony gets into a moderate shoot out with the police before surrendering. As he was walking down the stairs to meet the police, he decides to make a run for it and is shot repeatedly by the police. In the '83 film, Tony is not killed by the police or the feds, but by hit-men from a rival drug cartel. Fueled by rage and cocaine after seeing his sister killed, Tony gears up with his "little friend" and gets into one of the bloodiest and most classic shoot-outs in cinema history, killing or wounding more than a dozen Cartel hit-men before taking a double-barreled shotgun to the back by an assassin and falling into his reflection pool in his front lobby.

It became clogged with Angel (Pepe Serna)'s blood and tissue which temporarily stalled the engine long enough for Manny (Steven Bauer) and Chi-Chi (Ángel Salazar) to intervene. Edit

The cinematic answer is that he'd snorted so much cocaine in the few minutes prior that it gave him the strength to keep upright and taunt his attackers even though they'd riddled him with dozens of bullets. In reality Tony couldn't have possibly remained standing upright despite how much cocaine he'd snorted beforehand. The scene is simply there to add to the fact that Tony has balls of steel. Edit

While it is never fully explained if Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham) was in league with Hector the Toad (Al Israel) and the Colombians to kill Tony, or if it was just a coincidence, both Tony and Omar do not like each other when they first meet. Tony later explains to Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar) that he never liked or trusted Omar from the very start and suspects that Omar set him up with the drug deal in Miami where Angel Fernandez (Pepe Serna) was killed (with a chainsaw). In the first scene with Tony and Omar, when Manny introduces Tony, Omar offers them both a low-risk job of unloading marijuana from a boat for $500. Tony (clearly acting out of greed) balks at the offer and demands at least $1,000 for the work. The argument nearly turns violent when Omar prepares to pull a gun on Tony, when suddenly Waldo (Santos Morales) (the driver and other man in the car with Omar) stops him and whispers something to Omar which the tail end of it is heard as: "... he can do the Colombians, man." This implies that Omar might have known about the mechanical nature of Hector the Toad (i.e., rumors that Hector savagely kills people who attempt to buy his cocaine in order to steal their money). Waldo was clearly mentioning to Omar that he does not need to threaten Tony, but that if he arranges a cocaine purchase deal with Hector, it may result that Hector and his men would probably kill Tony for them. Edit