The healing of 'Scarface'

WHEN "Scarface" came out 20 years ago, Brian De Palma's outlaw immigrant saga was greeted with scathing reviews ("one of the largest empty vessels to float on an ocean of celluloid," wrote the Los Angeles Times' Sheila Benson) and lukewarm box office. The picture was considered one of the lesser lights in the director's canon of works, which included "Carrie," "Blow Out" and "Dressed to Kill."

It's all the more surprising, therefore, that, in the intervening decades, "Scarface" has emerged as an iconic film on the urban landscape, particularly in the hip-hop community. So big is its afterlife that Universal Pictures and its specialty unit Focus Features are re-releasing the film in movie theaters in Los Angeles and nine other cities on Friday. The move is timed to the Sept. 30 release of a new, digitally re-mastered DVD that has drawn advance orders of more than 2 million units -- surpassing every title in the studio's library, which encompasses "Jaws," "Jurassic Park," "Back to the Future" and "E.T."

Exaggerated, almost operatic in feel, the story follows Tony Montana (Al Pacino), a former prisoner who arrives in Miami in 1980 as part of the Cuban boat lift. Unable to make it legitimately, he and his friend Manny (Steven Bauer) start selling drugs, becoming kingpins in the cocaine trade. The search for respect and power ends tragically, derailed by Scarface's enemies and growing paranoia.

The film's anti-establishment rags-to-riches story and unsentimental message struck a chord with a young audience, the filmmakers and social critics say. Many have seen it dozens of times and can recite Oliver Stone's dialogue ("Say goodnight to the bad guy," "Say 'ello to my little friend," "I always tell the truth, even when I lie") verbatim.

"Montana is an antihero with whom contemporary kids can identify," says De Palma, who, nevertheless, shot down a proposal to replace Giorgio Moroder's period music with an original hip-hop soundtrack. "He's about greed, power and self-destruction in the land of opportunity, capitalism unfettered by morality, which they see all around them. The movie has become the 'On the Waterfront' of this generation -- and Pacino is their [Marlon] Brando."