Parents' Guide to

The Untouchables

By Charles Cassady Jr., Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Cops vs. the mob in bloody Prohibition-era drama.

Movie R 1987 119 minutes
The Untouchables Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 15+

Based on 4 parent reviews

age 16+

Great movie, must watch!

violence 5/5 lots of violent scenes with one particularly disturbing baseball bat scene. sex 0/5 no sex. language 3/5 some language. drinking 2/5 whole movie based around the prohibition.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much swearing
age 15+

Great Gangster Film Adapted From What Really Happened

This is a very well made gangster film telling the true story of a group of men trying to get the gang lord Al Capone behind bars. This has some great performances and is just an all around fell good film. I do note that it contains many violent shootouts and other bloody acts of violence with blood most of the time (head shots too) and some moderate swearing that makers this film appropriate for teens only, maybe not (depending on what they can handle) But overall a ripper film with content appropriate for most 15 year olds.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much swearing

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (4):
Kids say (25):

THE UNTOUCHABLES is a lot fun despite the corniness and simplifications. It's often said real-life lawman and city safety director Eliot Ness, when he died virtually forgotten in 1957, had no clue his name would be famous as a pop-culture crimefighter. It was the inaccurate "nonfiction" bestselling book The Untouchables and a network TV-series adaptation (1959-1963) that inspired this entertaining, super-deluxe, big-scale feature film, which, despite frequent swearing and bloodletting, is very old-school Hollywood in its flavor and morality (and failure to get the facts straight). The good guys are really good, the bad guys are hissably evil -- none of that trendy romanticizing the mob or pretending criminals are cool rebels. With bigger-than-life actors, direction, and snappy dialogue (by playwright David Mamet), this film comes on like, well, gangbusters.

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