I just watched “Scarface”, the ’80s remake, last night. I’ve been avoiding it for years because I figured it was just a cult flick, overly violent, a bunch of cliches about Cubans and an over-the-top performance by Al Pacino.

Well it, and he, were definitely over the top, and the movie was just your basic shoot-em up gangster flick, no great work of art, but definitely entertaining. But the script was good, the acting was believable, and Pacino chews up the scenery like only he can. But it worked. He looks Cuban, moves like a Cuban and even sounds Cuban (the accent is hard to fake for a non-Cuban, even for a Spanish speaker, which he is not). The performance is extravagant, but from gestures to jewelry, it is definitely authentic. And Michelle Pfeiffer (her first flick, she must have been in her 20s) was absolutely delicious.

This film successfully captures the flavor, the feeling, the decadence of calle ocho, cocaine cowboy, Miami Vice, disco-era S Florida, the style and fashion the locals call la saguesera*. (My people, of course, had more class, we came to Tampa a century ago, respectable, skilled blue-collar workers, not low-life Marielito misfits from Castro’s gulag.)

Incidentally, the screenplay was by Oliver Stone. I know his skill as a director, I had no idea he could write, too. The man certainly did his homework, this film is no work of art, somewhat formulaic, but it is genuine, archaeologically and anthropologically correct, and it is entertaining.

Recommended.

* “Southwestness”. Cuban refugees moved primarily into the Southwest quadrant of Miami, el sagué (pronounced sow-WEH), around 8th Street. -sera is a suffix roughly comparable to the English “-ness”.