Analyzing Evil: Tony Montana From Scarface

hello everyone and welcome to the 39th episode of analyzing evil featuring tony montana from scarface tony montana is a favorite among people the world over one who's charismatic tenacious and ferocious a man who with some connections and his own sheer force of will went from a refugee escaping an impoverished and repressive nation to a man living his own american dream as an absurdly wealthy drug kingpin as with other criminals i'll be covering on this channel it's important that we first talk about the criminal game before we continue to make things clear characters like tony montana are lionized for their personalities and how they're able to make themselves into something great from nothing but it's still important to recognize that the way in which tony does so is terrible as with the previous video on walter i'm not here to comment on the legality or morality of using drugs but as it stands in this film the trade tony is in is one of brutality death and despair and though the vast majority of people who are affected by his actions are other criminals playing the same game as him that doesn't make the proliferation of murder and pain any more pleasant nor does it excuse the fact that his actions cause horrible repercussions for not only the people participating but those around him who are not involved and though his characteristics may be admirable his actions certainly aren't with that out of the way in this video we'll be going through just what exactly makes tony such a brutal and mesmerizing character one who cemented himself as a cultural icon and as one of the most memorable characters in cinematic history without further ado let's begin we don't know much about who tony was before coming to america but what we do know about the man and his origin is enough to give us a bit of insight into how he may have developed into the man we see in the film born in cuba in what i assume was a few years before the castro regime took over the country in 1959 tony montana grew up in a world of poverty repression and control one that helped in shaping tony into the defiant and fearless individual we see in the film if it's true that tony's father was from the united states it would make sense that tony grew up watching films with his father that glorified life in america and the criminals that inhabited its underworld perhaps watching films like the original scarface or the public enemy if indeed he grew up watching james cagney as he claims whether or not that's the case tony was tantalized by a life of crime and we know that tony served time in prison while living in cuba during which time he became allied with various gangs eventually acquiring the tattoo on his hand to indicate his status as an assassin where his father may have been a catalyst for tony's dreams of becoming a gangster and living in the united states his mother was quite the opposite as she seems to be a very traditional woman who we can assume attempted to keep her son out of trouble trying to cage the ferocious young man as best she could something else that is integral to understanding tony montana's formative years is the fact that he's of a smaller stature compared to many of the men we see him coming into contact with in this film and owing to this i imagine his tendency to be highly confrontational and overtly macho developed in part to compensate for his size his fiery demeanor and fearlessness in the face of adversity stemming from his time defending himself as a small fry where tony actually got the scar on his face is anybody's guess but considering the fact of his size and the trouble it likely caused him on the streets of cuba his claim that he acquired it as a kid may not be too far off from the truth now what do all of these things tell us about tony montana they tell us that he was a child who felt the overbearing reach of expected obedience and repression and not just from the brutal government of fidel castro but from his traditionalist mother at home as well and with the films his father showed him of a life exponentially better than the one he was living tony montana became a rebellious youth who dreamt of bigger and better things so he took to the streets with bravado and charisma making friends and enemies alike before landing himself in prison which in a way was his ticket to the life he dreamed of living and that's where we find tony at the beginning of this story a man who's been shipped off to the land of opportunity as an undesirable with his best friend a fate that's markedly improved from languishing in a cuban jail obviously this is all just speculation but with these things in mind it's easy to see how tony developed into the man he is courageous and charismatic with a dogged fearlessness and ferocity tony from the very first scene of the film shows us that he's a man who takes lip from nobody a man who won't back down in the face of adversity no matter the odds that are stacked against him there's something bigger in tony's psyche that fuels these courageous traits and that's an abundance of narcissism tony in everything he does believes himself to be the best that he's the man one that anybody would be stupid to even think about messing with and it's this belief in himself that makes tony able to stand in front of a gun as if he were bulletproof a man who's nigh invincible in the face of his foes in this way you could say he's a rather principled character a man who sticks by his assurance that the only things he has in this world are his balls and his word and he doesn't break them for anybody but those aren't the only principles that tony sticks by as he really is a loyal person as he claimed to be to frank and though he's brutal and remorseless when it comes to dealing with his enemies he doesn't sink to the point where he resorts to killing innocents which is a quality that some characters of questionable moral integrity notably lack his ambitions are certainly enormous and he did attempt to accelerate his own trajectory by orchestrating a deal that frank hadn't yet approved of but he did so with frank in mind and he wasn't making this deal in an attempt to usurp frank but to bolster frank's and his own standing in their business his ambition isn't necessarily a bad thing but his method of achieving his dreams is certainly misguided and along with his narcissism this makes for a highly detrimental mindset that sets tony on a course towards self-destruction even his overprotectiveness regarding his sister comes from a good place even if it is extreme as the reason he's so heavy-handed with the people she sees is because they're criminals like him and he wants her to have a better life than what he knows they can provide for her this is perhaps the only thing tony took from his mother a distaste for other criminals and their involvement in his family however we don't know to what extent his mother had a hand in tony's upbringing and his life of crime but whatever the case may be she recognizes now the harm her son can bring to those around him and if she can help it she'll do anything to keep the same poison from affecting her daughter this is tony's mindset when it comes to other men as he believes that he's capable of providing for this family without them having to get involved but he knows that if his sister were to date or marry someone in his business she would have no choice but to become involved herself to some capacity the positive traits in tony that i've highlighted are what make him an admirable and identifiable character to watch as though he's without a doubt a vicious criminal he does have a set of values that softens his character and makes him much more relatable than others this is who tony is a charismatic overly macho narcissist with big dreams and an attitude that could kill but it's not who tony is but what he does that makes him a rather despicable human being and his story is an example of the result most people get from being involved in a highly volatile and extremely dangerous business a lengthy prison sentence or death now the thing about the majority of his actions is that they fall under the category of being atrocities committed against people who are actively engaged in the same lifestyle as he is and therefore in a sense could be seen as more forgivable like his murder of the men who attempted to kill him during his first drug deal or when he murdered frank and mel as when tony engages in these criminal activities the people he's harming are far from innocent themselves and he does so in self-defense rather than out of malice or hatred you could even say that one of the murders he commits is noble as he murders alberto after he refuses to call off the assassination of the bolivian journalists speaking out against their organization an act that saves this man and his family even so these actions cause an untold amount of collateral damage to innocents who are adjacent to this business and actions that are taken against tony due to his involvement in this business play into this as well a great example of this and an example of the effects of criminal activity on innocence is the assassination attempt made against tony at the babylon club of course tony didn't ask to be assassinated but the fact that he put himself in a position to be assassinated by being involved in the illegal drug trade caused the death of an innocent bystander the performer playing octavio but you may be saying how could he have known that would happen that doesn't matter what matters is that had tony montana decided to come to america and work a job like his mother or start a restaurant like his former employer this would never have occurred and something similar would be almost impossible to occur if he had gone through legitimate channels you might argue that an immigrant who comes from nothing has only a small chance of attaining greatness in this world without the help of illegitimate sources but this is decidedly not the case and you can find a variety of successful people who came to the united states with nothing but the clothes on their back and then made it to the heights of success and had tony put his mind to it a man like him could have likely been successful in almost any endeavor he chose to pursue now earlier i did say the majority of his actions could be attributed to this criminal lifestyle and are thus more forgivable in a way but i did say the majority not all of them as there is one act in particular that seals tony's fate an act that we all reviled the murder of his friend and brother manny in the second half of the movie we're privy to all the little factors that play a part in tony's reaction to this event factors that all play into his slow but assured downfall tony after an initial honeymoon period has now settled into his life as a rich man and he's settled in rather uncomfortably he may have the money and the power and the woman but he's now stuck with paranoia a drug addiction and an unhappy childless marriage constantly watching out for his safety and dealing with elvira's attitude after being set up in part due to manny's error in judgment and being pigeonholed into doing sosa's dirty work in order to save himself from a three-year prison sentence tony comes to realize how thoroughly unhappy he is being at the top before he had excitement and goals to look forward to but now he has routine and emptiness a life where he lives each day the same with nothing to look forward to this is what brings him to his state of despair during the restaurant scene where his wife effectively leaves him and after having to deal with alberto and his willingness to murder a man's family tony becomes distraught with the prospects in front of him when he learns that manny has been mia for a few days now his fears grow exponentially as disorganization in this dire time is something he cannot afford to suffer he knows he's now the target of a conspiracy the likes of which he'd been paranoid about falling prey to all this time and after of course getting outrageously high he's contemplating his next move when his mother calls to tell him gina is missing thus ensues a mad dash to find his sister whose life i'm sure he feared for at this time completely oblivious to the obvious connection here tony comes to find his sister half naked at the top of his best friend's staircase if this were any other time in tony's life perhaps he would have reacted differently but with all of the recent tragic events that have happened to him in a matter of days manny's absence in his hour of need and his fragile mental state due to his high he sees nothing more than utter betrayal in front of him his ascent was really the beginning of the end for tony as he was unequipped to handle that big of an influx in money and power resulting in lavish overindulgence in all things especially drugs that all but spelled doom for tony however this murder was the final nail in the coffin perhaps if he hadn't killed manny here he could have helped tony in organizing a proper defense against sosa perhaps he could have hit out at manny's house until the heat died down and they were able to come up with an effective plan any number of things could have happened here had tony not done what he did but instead he goes back to his home to wallow in an absurd amount of drugs the horror of what he's done hitting him as his high ebbs and flows with calamity edging closer and closer as his distraught sister comes to him with the intent to kill as his enemies swarm his compound not only did he lose manny by doing what he did but his sister as well completely breaking her mentally and emotionally and driving her into that very room where she met her demise in the end tony goes out fighting as he always had in a show of unbreakable courage ultimately destroyed by everything he had become and at this end who was tony montana he was a man who came from nothing one who spat in the face of repression and adversity carving a place for himself in the world as a ferocious and steadfast man through sheer force of will this man who had everything in the world working against him completely ignored the chains that tried to tie him down and made his dream a reality unfortunately this dream was corrupted by the hard realities of the criminal life and though his narcissism and his ego brought him far his inability to handle a rapidly expanding lifestyle along with the forces working against him left him paranoid insecure and full of himself his belief in his own power to make his life what he wanted it to be may have been what got him so far but in the end it ended up being his undoing as a man who never fears the fall is blind to the cliff before him perhaps the world does need a bad guy and there are certainly plenty hidden in plain sight who commit much worse crimes than tony but one bad guy does not cancel out the other as the life we choose to live defines who we are not the lives of others tony montana had an admirable personality charisma and tenacity a man who could have taken his talents and been anything he set his mind to be but the life he chose was one of brutality heartbreak and despair and his willingness to live and thrive in a world of crime and violence ultimately led to his undoing leaving him destined to drown in his own evil thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and i hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on tony did i miss anything let me know down below and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured in a future episode while you're at it if you liked this video and want to see more like it appearing in your feed click the subscribe button to keep up on the latest episodes and feel free to leave a like while you're at it thank you once again to all of my existing subscribers for your continued and incredible support if you'd like to support the 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Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 729,227

Keywords: Tony Montana, Scarface, Al Pacino, Oliver Stone, Martin Bregman, Brian De Palma, 80's, Cuba, Villain, Evil, Analysis, Film

Id: WBxyna1eRx4

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 08 2021