Tony Montana
| Antonio Tony Montana | |
|---|---|
| File:Scarfaceinthefall.jpg "Tony's Last Stand" | |
| In-universe information | |
| Occupation | Drug Lord |
| Family | Sister (Gina Montana), Mother |
| Spouse | Elvira Hancock |
| Children | None |
| Relatives | He had an American father who took him to movies |
Antonio "Tony" Montana "Scarface" is a fictional character in the Brian DePalma film Scarface, portrayed by Al Pacino. Oliver Stone came up with the name by combining the last name of his then-favourite football player (Joe Montana) and the first name from the main character of the 1932 film Scarface: The Shame of a Nation, played by Paul Muni.
In the film
Tony Montana arrives in Miami from his native Cuba on the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. As he is questioned by U.S. customs officials, his scars and gang tattoos, (which could indicate the status of an assassin), do not go unnoticed. Montana is refused entry and sent along with his best friend Manny Ribera (Steven Bauer) to a make-shift detention camp. In the camp, Tony carries out a cartel hit that earns him and his friends an early release, green cards and a job washing dishes at a tiny food stand.
Tony and Manny soon quit their jobs after Omar (F. Murray Abraham) offers them a job to do a cocaine exchange with some dangerous Colombians led by "Hector the Toad" at the Sun Ray hotel. The deal goes horribly wrong. Angel, another refugee, and Tony enter and are ambushed. Angel is horribly dismembered with a chainsaw. Tony stood to suffer the same fate had the crew outside not intervened. In the commotion, Manny is shot, but the group escapes with the buy money and the drugs. Montana and his associates earn the respect and admiration of a powerful drug kingpin, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), who offers them jobs.
Unlike Manny, Tony is not satisfied with their change in fortune, and sets to establish himself as a major player in the cocaine industry. Tony even has his sights on taking Lopez's mistress Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer). Tony hopes to realize a dream he once thought was impossible: to have "the world and everything in it."
Tony then visits his mother and his sister, Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). He doesn't get along with his mother (Miriam Colon), who recognizes him for the sociopath he is. He adores Gina but he brutalizes any other man who tries to form a relationship with her.
Tony wins the trust of the suave Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar), a Bolivian drug lord. Through his dealings with Sosa, Tony quickly rises in Miami's underworld; he survives an assassination attempt, violently overthrows Lopez, and eventually marries Elvira. At about this time, Manny and Gina begin a relationship. They hide it from Tony, however, because Gina is terrified of Tony's jealousy.
Drug dealings with Sosa
A corrupt police officer named Mel Bernstein (Harris Yulin) meets with Tony in the Babylon Club, having heard of Tony's upcoming transaction, where he proposes to "tax" Montana on his transactions. There the two negotiate a large bribe for Bernstein. Tony is shot at by two Colombian hitmen in the Babylon, and narrowly escapes in the shootout that follows. He makes it to Nick the Pig's (Michael P. Moran) apartment, and from there he summons Chi Chi and Manny. Tony sets a trap for Frank, telling Nick the Pig to call him at 3 a.m. and imitate the hitman by telling him that they "fucked up, he got away." Tony, Manny, and Chi Chi (Ángel Salazar) then visit Frank at his car dealership. There, Tony watches as Frank receives the call from Nick the Pig. However, Frank pretends to be talking to Elvira, and Tony has Manny shoot Frank in the heart as Mel sits by and watches. Tony then shoots him in the gut and then once more in the heart, killing him. Tony then gives Frank's henchman, Ernie, a job. He then leaves and takes Elvira to his house. Tony had overthrown Frank, and a blimp with the caption "THE WORLD IS YOURS" hovered in the distance.
Downfall
Tony Montana soon completes his business deal with Sosa. On his first deal he makes $75 million. This you can see in the film when Tony Montana says to Frank Lopez: we make $75 million on this deal. Soon after this, Frank is killed and Tony Montana takes over the distribution of Frank and Tony completes his first deal with Aleandro Sosa. Tony Montana buys 2000 kilo of cocaine from Sosa which he sells for $ 75 million dollars. Which was laundered for him by a corrupt banker, but he wants more and is soon making $10–$15 million a month. Tony married Elvira and bought a lavish mansion, even buying Gina her own beauty parlor. Meanwhile, Manny and Gina began dating behind his back, and Tony and Elvira become heavily addicted to cocaine.
Tony is later caught attempting to launder $1.3 million by undercover cops, and faces up to three years in prison for money laundering and tax evasion. Sosa confronts Tony and informs him that he can make sure he does not face any prison time, but only if he supervises the assassination of a journalist who is troubling Sosa's entire drug operation in Bolivia. Reluctantly, Tony agrees. Planting a car bomb, Tony and the hitman tail the journalist's car with a remote-controlled detonator. They are to blow his car up with the explosives in front of the United Nations building, but are surprised to see the man's wife and two daughters enter the car with him at his hotel. Tony, now extremely reluctant to continue with the hit, becomes increasingly agitated with the hitman, who refuses to deviate from Sosa's orders, until Tony completely snaps. In a cocaine-induced rage, he murders the hitman, who was supposed to kill the journalist, screaming at his dead body deliriously. Despite his addiction, Montana still had limits. Killing the woman and her children surpassed the bounds. Tony reasons "I don't want that shit in my life."
Manny and Gina disappear and get married while Tony is in New York; they believe that in joining together respectably, they would win Tony's approval. Tony returns to his mansion, but by then his wife has left him. He speaks to his mother over the phone and finds out about Gina's disappearance. After this, he visits his mother at her home and then goes looking for Gina. He finds Manny and Gina together, flies into a rage and shoots Manny twice, killing him. Gina informs him that they had just gotten married as she sobs over his corpse, and that they did it that way so as not to make him angry. In shock, Tony returns home with a distraught and furious Gina.
At the mansion Tony snorts more cocaine from the enormous piles on his desk as Gina walks into his office. Gina then berates him for his sins, speculating that he is so protective towards her because he wants her for himself; following this she takes out a gun and begins shooting at him, wounding him in the leg. Meanwhile, Sosa's hitmen invade Tony's mansion, killing his henchmen. One of Sosa's men kills Gina as she shoots at Tony, believing Tony to be the source of the gunfire. Wild with rage, Tony charges the man and throws him off his balcony into the pool below, where he shoots him. Soon, he notices the soldiers Sosa sent to murder him on his surveillance system and sits on the floor of his office, sobbing over Gina's corpse as Chi Chi bangs on his door, pleading for him to open it. Tony, completely oblivious, watches from the surveillance monitor as Chi Chi is shot dead in the back. Sosa's soldiers gather in Tony's main hall, four of them in front of his door; ready to ambush him.
Shouting in his cocaine-induced rage, Tony takes an M16 rifle with an M203 grenade launcher attachment from his weapon locker and loads up on ammunition. Opposition mounts just outside of the door to his room ready to take him out. He yells his infamous catchphrase "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" and blows the door apart. The blast knocks down all of the men behind the door. He walks out calmly as he kills each one with his rifle. He then walks out to his balcony and opens fire on his would-be assassins. As he makes his last stand. Sosa's assassin (The Skull) silently walks up to him from behind and shoots him in the back. Mortally wounded, he plunges several feet below into the fountain, dead. With fitting irony, the camera pans up to show the gruesome scene crowned by the statue behind Tony's body reading The World Is Yours.
In popular culture
Since the release of Scarface, the Tony Montana character has been widely referenced and parodied in popular culture. In the world of hip hop, particularly gangsta rap, Montana is widely seen as a role model for his "outsider" status, rise from poverty to wealth and power and sociopathic appetite for violence.
Many Latin rappers dress like characters from the film, though they only opt to emulate the "street clothes" Montana's crew wears in the beginning of the movie, neglecting the flashy suits which he wears for the majority of the film.
Each DVD release inspired the largely Hispanic population in Hudson County, New Jersey to "camp out" in front of retail stores such as Best Buy in Secaucus, as well as Circuit City in Union City. Both stores indicated record high sales on the release dates.
Lines from the film are also frequently sampled In hip-hop songs. The Houston-based Geto Boys were one of the earliest rap groups to sample the lines and dialogue. During Public Enemy's "Welcome to the Terrordome," Flavor Flav recites several lines from the film. Music from the movie has also been sampled in the instrumentals for hip-hop songs such as Mobb Deep's "G.O.D. Pt. III" and "It's Mine". Nas' "The World is Yours" takes its title from the motto Montana lived by. One hip-hop artist, Brad Jordan (later a member of the Geto Boys) has even gone so far as to name himself Scarface after the film, and another goes by the name Tony Montana.
Various Latin rap artists such as Fat Joe, Big Pun, Cuban Link and The Beatnuts have sampled lines from the movie.
"The World is Yours"
A recently released video game entitled Scarface: The World Is Yours, a quasi-sequel to the film, features an alternate ending and epilogue of sorts to the movie. In the opening scene of the game—the original "ending" scene of the movie—Montana is able to detect his would-be assassin and shoots him before escaping his mansion. He then spends the next few months hiding before beginning a quest to rebuild his empire