SPOILERS
Oscars are so rarely about the performance. Yeah, some are "undeniable." Ironic example: George C. Scott won his Oscar as Patton in the first five minutes of the movie, hands down. But...he refused the Oscar.
And as Oscar winner Jack Palance said: "The performance doesn't win. The CHARACTER wins." You betcha. Patton. Forrest Gump. Rooster Cogburn. Palance in "City Slickers"(but NOT in Tango and Cash.) Erin Brockovich.
But more often than not, the Oscar is about "something else." The movie it is in. The competition that year. If the winner is "owed." Etc.
Connery won because...the character wins.
Connery was a great big giant movie star, but he rarely appeared in films that merited Oscar consideration. He was great as James Bond...but Bond couldn't win an Oscar. Zardoz? Highlander?...Meteor? A great star, a very charismatic actor but...that great role eluded him.
Connery came close in The Man Who Would Be King but his pal Michael Caine rather stole the screen. Connery had been in serious but grim films for director Sidney Lumet -- The Hill and The Offence -- but nobody saw them.
Highlander and The Name of the Rose suggested what his post-Bond career COULD be...the father-figure mentor to younger actors -- but The Untouchables perfected the idea.
It was a great "pop classic" more Western than gangster movie, and Sean Connery's Jimmy Malone is the heart of the story.
Costner's callow Elliott Ness recruits Malone because he knows an honest cop when he sees one -- a middle-aged cop still walking a beat, never promoted because he was too honest. Malone's a big man, too -- brave, can take care of himself in a fistfight, can shoot.
CONT
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ecarle (14979)
3 years ago
And Malone has a ready store of "wise dialogue":
"The first rule of law enforcement: when your day is done, always come home alive."
"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue. That's the Chicago way..."
(After punching a thug in the gut) "How do you think he feels now -- better? ...or worse?"
(Riding into battle on a horse against Capone's men) "Aw, hell..you're gonna die of something."
(Dying, to Ness): "What are you prepared to do?"
And after his death, Connery's leadership and loss looms over the entire third act. One reason that Ness and Stone are so merciless on the train station staircase to their enemies is...they're avenging Malone.
The character won the Oscar for Connery...but Connery won the Oscar for the character. He never really got a true Oscar bait role again. Jimmy Malone got there just in time.
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