The movie Scarface, directed by Brian De Palma, in 1983, broke my heart. Naturally, I like movies with good endings, just as many other people do, so as the end credits finally ran across the screen in front of my eyes, I was beyond upset. I do not see the talk about drugs as a taboo subject, yet that does not mean that I find it easy to speak about. Because I do not think that it is easy to discuss. Admittedly, drugs are a serious subject, and in most cases, they are really bad too. In most places, drugs are illegal and people have different reasons for using and often abusing the use of drugs. What I want to come across, is that even though drugs can severely hurt many people in the process of simply placing an order within a community of drug lords and people involved in that business, it is so hard to have people stop making, selling, buying, and using drugs. Moreover as a way of sugarcoating someone's pain, or another reason. Let us delve more into the actual movie then, shall we?
I read something along these lines somewhere: “Tony had nothing, then everything, and then nothing again.” My heart wrenched as I read that sentence. Subsequently, I read it again. I am pretty sure that when anyone watched a movie, everyone must have a theory about how the movie is going to end. Not everyone might be able to write a 200-page essay about how the movie is going to end, but I am pretty sure that everyone has the slightest idea. Perhaps not about the course of events, but at least they expect something from the main character. Certainly, I did. I had watched about an hour and a half of the movie when a thought crossed my mind: “Tony is going to die, is he not?” As soon as I fathomed what was going on inside my mind, I wanted to just stop watching. I did not want to know the ending, but I did, and therefore my heart is still burning as I am writing this ‘discussion’, or rather, my thoughts and feelings about the subject and message of the movie.
Okay, I am just going to say it as it is: I felt empathy for Antonio Montana. You see, it is not that I do not have anything in life, or that my life is miserable. It is not and I am very grateful, yet I keep hoping that my mind can come up with some explanation on the ending of Scarface because I truly do not think, that Tony deserved what he got. Conversely, I think it was wrong of him to shoot Manny. It was wrong of him to hit his sister when he saw that man grab her ass. Tony killed a lot of people too, and he showed no respect whatsoever toward Elvira as soon as they got married. Nonetheless, I feel so bad about the way Tony’s life ended. The fact that he had just done what Elvira told him from the beginning not to do: “never get high on your own supply” is exactly what he did likewise the discussion we had earlier about people using drugs when feeling down. I am not saying I understand Tony and accept all the wrongs he has done, for example, that he told Manny not to get near his sister, and because his best friend did not listen to him, Tony freaking shot Manny. Yes, Manny had not stayed in charge of the business as Tony had asked him to while he was gone, but when measured against Tony’s reaction when Manny opened the door and Gina was walking out in nothing but a silk robe, that action cannot be forgiven. Tony shot Manny as soon as his head could register the explanation for the scene in front of him. Manny had no time to explain or apologize, but at least Gina did as she ran toward her dead spouse. “We got married just yesterday. We were gonna surprise you.”
It really is stuck with me, the “Tony had nothing and worked his way to the top. Yet in the blink of an eye, he lost everything that he had worked his ass off for.” I really cannot express the amount of sorrow in my heart. It physically hurts so much to keep thinking about the movie and its shenanigans. The ending ripped my heart out of my ribcage and misplaced it with a melting ice pop.
In conclusion, I truly think Tony deserved to be happy; To have kids with Elvira that he could pick up at school, to have a healthier relationship with his sister and less of a father-daughter relationship with her, to respect Manny and see him as more than a “junior partner”, and most of all to get out of the dirty business demanding cocaine and instead find a real and paying job.