That last line made me hate Ness

"So you broke every law in the book, killed dozens of people, endagered the lives of countless innocents, risked the lives of your family, saw two of your friends die, all to enforce a law you didn't care about?"

OP--overreact much? Let's hope you've lightened up since you posted this rant--which others posters have shown isn't even based on the truth.

The alcohol is incidental in this movie. Capone uses it as a means to control a brutal criminal empire. The Untouchables aren't hypocrites, their goal was not to ban alcohol, but to bring down Capone.

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Oh and I suppose Al Capone bombing that shop killing the little girl made him better then Ness did it? He was a murdering contempabile *beep* too..

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Do you think Ness should either be against the law and not enforce it, or be totally for it and continue obeying/enforcing it even after it's no longer relevant? He didn't break laws because he was anti-drinking, or even because alcohol was the specific thing Capone was smuggling. He did it because Capone's guys killed two of his friends and the only way to get back at him for that was to break the rules. He never crossed any lines in relation to the smuggling, only to get vengeance for Wallace and Malone.

The whole point of Ness' character arc is that he's driven to turn his back on what he believed. The people he is up against are ruthless thugs who behave as though the law doesn't apply to them and kill on a whim. Ness' efforts to defeat them legally fail at almost every turn. When he finally gets to Capone through mostly legal means, i.e., the border raid, Capone's hitman murders Ness' witness and Wallace, and shortly thereafter Malone as well, leaving Malone with almost nothing. At this point, he has two choices. Just give up and leave, or get the next witness, Walter Payne, alive by any means necessary.

Neither is the wrong choice, really. Which one he makes just depends on what kind of person Ness is. And as we saw, Ness is the kind of man who, despite wanting to remain civil and law-abiding, turns violent when pushed. And Capone pushed. Hard. Ness was even gonna take Nitti, the actual killer of his friends by his own admission, alive, until Nitti just wouldn't stop gloating.

Ironically (for Capone anyway) it was Capone's retaliation that spurred Ness to take the second choice and go after Payne as viciously as he did. The loss of George alone would've been a huge blow to the D.A.'s case, yes, but Ness wouldn't have gone and shot up half a train station over that. But Capone couldn't let it go at that and just had to have two of his friends murdered so brutally, slaughtered like animals, almost. This was Ness' breaking point. I'm not saying I agree with how Ness decided to get Payne, I'm just saying his motivation for doing so makes sense in the context of the story.

As for Nitti... even I, who am ordinarily a pretty merciful guy, would've chucked his butt off that roof. Or at least felt like it. Again this doesn't make it right, legally or morally, but the guy was just pushing buttons and being a remorseless, arrogant dick. He was practically begging for it and deliberately provoking Ness.

And even if Ness does pick and choose which rules to adhere to and which to break, there's still nothing wrong with having a drink after it's legal to again, so I fail to see how the ending line is out of character for him, or would make you make him.

"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"

Have you really seen this movie ?

Ness never said he didn't like drinking. He is a cop, and he thinks that the law is the law.

Something to note: Ness clearly made the point at the beginning of the film to his men that the issue was not the morality of taking a drink or not, but the issue of what the law IS that will drive them. He's not being hypocritical; his character is one that believes - right or wrong - that society will stand or fall on it's ability to have structures and laws in place and then keep to them. In that final comment, there is no inconsistency; if it's legal to take a drink, he will (and probably needs it after all the effort his job has entailed, lol). But until then, he will uphold the law as it's written.