U


The Untouchables

Reviewed by unknown, Pepperdine University

The place was Chicago. It was 1930, the time of ganglords and the time of Al Capone. In the Untouchables, Kevin Costner played Elliot Ness, the man who got Al Capone(played by Robert DeNiro). Elliot Ness was a special agent of the Treasury Department, and at the request of the city of Chicago and the federal government, he was to stop the violence and the liquor that Al Capone was behind.

In the beginning, Kevin Costner's Elliot Ness is in Kohlberg's fourth stage which is doing one's duty, respecting authority, and maintaining the given social order for its own sake. This is evident very early in the film when he is talking to the policemen about inforcing the prohibition law. He tells them that prohibition is the law of the land, and even though you think it may be harmless, you are not to drink from now on because if we are going to inforce the law, we must first do so by setting an example. He is very gung-ho and positive that he is going to stop the liquor and the violence. You can respect him for this even though he seems naive about the situation. It really shows when he goes for his first raid and says "Okay men, let's do some good."

As the movie progresses, Elliot is still operating in stage four, but you can sense that there could be a change when he meets with Malone(played by Sean Connery) in the church. He goes there to get Malone's advice on how to get Capone. Elliot is prepared to do anything within the law to get Capone, but Malone comes back with "then what?" Malone suggests that he do it the Chicago way, " He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.." but Elliot retorts with "I have sworn to put this man away with any legal means at my disposal, and I will do so." He does show his law abiding nature, but you can sense that his anger could possibly shift him elsewhere. This is more clearly seen when his family is threatened, and he tells Malone "I want to hurt Capone, I want to hurt him." He has moved from the law abiding man pursuing the extinction of violence and liquor, to part of a four man crusade against Capone himself. It is hard to tell where he shifts to because he keeps coming back with his "law abiding" statements, but it is clear he is not in stage four of Kohlberg. This is seen when he tells the book keeper that because he has broken the law he must, as his right, become an informant. In the scene right after this though, he says "Your not from Chicago." to the Canadian policeman who criticized Malone on his law enforcement methods. He has said something that he himself did not agree with in the beginning.

When Malone is killed by one of Capone's men, you can see that Elliot will do anything to get Capone. It is almost like an eye for an eye reasoning, but if he started in stage four, Kohlberg says that you can not go backwards. When Elliot goes to the train station to get the book keeper, he shoots up the bad guys and he does not seem ot feel remorse like he did in earlier scenes. He is still enforcing the law, but it's more vengeful since the death of Malone, which clearly shows he is not in stage four. He does not fit to clearly into any of Kohlberg's other stages though.

In the final scenes you can really tell Elliot Ness is not in stage four moral reasoning. While in court Ness see's one of Capone's men with a gun and he gets a bailiff, and they escort him out. While he is checking out this man's possessions, he see's Malone's address on the inside of some matches, and he knew that this was the man who had killed him. He chases the man down, and traps him, and could have shot him, but it seems as if he is going to let justice prevail. When he is walking to the door though, ( they are on the roof) the bad guy says, "He died like a stuck Irish pig, and I want you to think about that when I beat my rap." Right then Ness grabs him and throws him off the roof and says, "Did he sound anything like that?" There is no way he is in stage four. He may have gone to stage three to meet the expectations of family loyalty, because Malone was like family, or he could have gone to stage five. In stage five, laws can be changed democratically and rational consideration can improve utility, and Ness could have seen it as this man will probably go free, which would not be right, and rationalized it in that way. I believe that he knew the law, and what was right and wrong, but he saw to it that this man paid for his crime. He even says in one of the last scenes of the movie " I have for sworn myself. I have broken every law that I swore to defend. I have become what I beheld, and I am content that I have done right." He knows that the way he went about getting Capone was not the proper way, but he still believes that he has done right. I even looked at stage six where it says that right is defined by conscience,in accordance with self-chosen principles that are abstract and not moral with an emphisis on reciprocity, but I really do not think he ever reached stage six, and maybe not even stage five. I do believe that he started out in stage four, but where he went I do not know.

Ness's character did not fit perfectly into Kohlberg's stages, and I believe that he may have gone against the proper sequencing. Elliot Ness was on a mission to stop the violence and the liquor because it was the law, but he ended up on a personal vendetta against Capone and eventually put him behind bars. He told Capone at the end of the movie " Never stop fighting until the fight is done, and it's over. You're finished. You're end of the lesson."


Back to top.

Home | Back | Next