Tony Montana

Infobox character
colour = orange
name = Tony Montana


caption = Tony during the movie's final scene
portrayer = Al Pacino
gender = Male
age =
born = May 5, 1940
flagicon|Cuba Havana, Cuba
death = death date and age|1983|11|2|1940|5|5
flagicon|USA Miami, Florida
occupation = Drug lord
spouse = Elvira Hancock Montana
children =
family = Gina Montana (sister)
Georgina Montana (mother)
Manny Ribera (brother-in-law)
relatives =

Antonio "Tony" Montana is a fictional character in the remake of the 1932 film "Scarface" portrayed by Al Pacino. The character also appears in the 2006 video game titled "". In the game, Pacino's likeness is used, however, Montana is voiced by André Sogliuzzo, hand picked by Al Pacino himself. Oliver Stone came up with the name by combining the last name of his then-favorite football player (Joe Montana) and the first name from the main character of the 1932 film version, Tony Camonte, played by Paul Muni.

Fictional biography

Tony Montana was born in Havana, Cuba on May 5 1940.

"Scarface"

Tony Montana arrives in Miami from his native Cuba on the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. Montana is initially refused entry into the US 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. The deal goes horribly wrong. Angel, another refugee, and Tony are ambushed, and Angel is dismembered with a chainsaw. 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.

Tony sets to establish himself as a major player in the cocaine industry. For the next three months, Tony and Manny handle jobs for Frank and become highly respected in his organization. Tony eventually sets 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 (Miriam Colon) and his sister, Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). It was implied that his father left the family but his mother and sister still lives in the house. He doesn't get along with his mother, 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.Frank soon sends Tony and Omar to meet Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar), a Bolivian drug lord. Sosa then tells Omar to go back to Miami and discuss his proposition with Frank, but he then reveals to Tony, Omar was an informer in drugs trial in New York a few years ago, as Tony observes Omar being hung from a helicopter. Realizing his danger, Tony negotiates a deal with Sosa for $25 million for 2000 kilos of cocaine and then an ongoing operation of Sosa supplying Tony with 400 kilos of cocaine a month. Back in Miami, Frank is furious that Tony negotiated such an outlandish deal and Tony decides to leave Franks organization.

A corrupt police officer named Mel Bernstein (Harris Yulin) meets with Tony at the Babylon Club, where he proposes to "tax" him on his transactions. There the two negotiate a large bribe for Bernstein, along with first-class airline tickets to London. Tony is shot at by two Colombian hitmen in the Babylon, and narrowly escapes in the shootout that follows. Tony and Manny then go to Frank about the attack. Frank confesses to Tony that the attack was ordered by him and begs Tony not to kill him. Instead, Tony orders Manny to kill him.

Tony assumes control of Frank's operation and seals his business deal with Sosa shortly after. Tony made $75 million from selling the 2000 kilos and from his and Sosa's ongoing arrangement was soon making $10–$15 million a month, which was laundered for him by a corrupt banker, Jerry. Tony marries Elvira, makes Manny his second-in-command and head of security at his two storehouses the lavish mansion Tony buys with part of his first $75 million. He also buys Gina her own beauty parlor and acquires several front companies for his money laundering. Meanwhile, Manny and Gina began dating behind his back, and both 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. 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 and plants a car bomb. Tony and the hitman, Alberto, are then surprised to see the man's wife and two daughters enter the car with him at his hotel. Repulsed at the idea of murdering children Tony demands that the plan be aborted, but the hitman insists on obeying Sosa's orders. In a cocaine-induced rage, Tony murders Alberto.

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, where by then his wife has left him, and learns that Sosa has sent thugs after him, after Tony and an angry Sosa have an argument over the phone. Then he visits his mother again and finds out about Gina's disappearance, in which she lives in a "fancy house" in Coconut Grove. He goes there finds Manny and Gina together, flies into a rage and kills Manny. He then takes his hysterical sister to his house.

Gina then berates him for his sins, speculating that he is so protective towards her because he wants her for himself; she tries to seduce him, then takes out a gun and begins shooting at him, wounding him in the leg. Meanwhile, Sosa's Bolivian hitmen invade Tony's mansion, killing his henchmen and Gina. Wild with rage, Tony charges the killer and throws him off his balcony into the pool below, before shooting him from the balcony. While crying over Gina's corpse, he notices the soldiers Sosa sent to murder him on his surveillance system. Still dazed, he the monitor as Chi Chi is shot dead outside his barred door. Sosa's soldiers then gather in Tony's main hall, several of them in front of his door.

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 iconic catchphrase "Say hello to my little friend!" and blows the door apart. He walks out and starts killing the Bolivians near him with his rifle. The attackers fire back, hitting Tony repeatedly, but Montana, fueled by grief, rage and massive amounts of cocaine, continues to taunt them. However, Sosa's head assassin is able to enter Tony's office and shoot him from behind with a double-barreled shotgun. Tony topples over the balcony into the pool below, dead, with the "The World Is Yours" statue being shown as the credits roll, as the final dramatic irony.

"Scarface: The World Is Yours"

The video game titled "", 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 detects his would-be assassin and shoots him before escaping his mansion. He then spends the next three months hiding before beginning a quest to rebuild his empire and having revenge on Sosa.

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 appetite for violence.
* 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.
* The animated series, "The Boondocks" pays homage to Tony Montana in its season 1 intro. In the intro, Riley Freeman is modeled after Tony Montana's classic picture to Scarface. Also, in the first episode of the series, Riley is shown wearing a similar suit to that of Tony Montana's in the movie.
* In the popular animated series, "The Batman", the classic Batman villain The Ventriloquist is featured with a revised design for his puppet. The puppet in the show is dressed in Tony Montanna's trademark white suit, rather than a wardrobe reminiscent of Al Capone, which he wore in the original comic books. Although ironically Montana is based on the real life Capone.
* 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", Esham "Bolivia" 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. Jay-Z's 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt, also samples Omar's lines to Montana regarding the deal with the Colombian's on the intro to the song "Can't Knock The Hustle".
* Various Latin rap artists such as Immortal Technique, Fat Joe, Big Pun, Cuban Link and The Beatnuts have sampled lines from the movie.
* The game "" features many references to the film "Scarface" and to Tony Montana himself. Among those are that of the main character, Tommy Vercetti, as he has a botched drug deal at the beginning of the story, he is exiled from his old home, and eventually rises to power in the new city he's in by killing the town's biggest drug lord, who is his former friend. During gameplay, Tommy acquires a suit that is identical to the one Montana wears during the film's climatic gun battle. Also, Vercetti's former employeer ambushes him at his new mansion and tries to kill him, the big difference being that Tommy, unlike Montana, didn't use his cocaine for himself, and in turn, manages to survive the final gun battle. As well, in a subtle nod to the infamous "chainsaw torture" scene in "Scarface", in "Vice City" there is a hotel room that is accessible during the game where the bathroom is found to have blood-stains in the shape of feet and hands, the bath tub is filled with blood complete with a hand poking out of it, and a chainsaw is lying on the floor nearby.
* Tony Montana is referenced in an episode of the HBO series "The Wire". In season 1, episode 12, "Cleaning Up," the character of Detective Jimmy McNulty, watching a SWAT team surround the headquarters of a drug kingpin, quips, "Do they think it's Tony Montana up there? These guys probably haven't touched a gun in years."
*In the third episode of "Code Monkeys", an 8-bit version of Tony Montana is shown, renamed Tony Dakota, and is a drug lord that Dave and Jerry end up owing $30,000.00 to.
*In Lil Wayne's "A Milli" the line "Tony told us this world was ours" refers to the video game inspired by the film "Scarface".

ee also

*List of "Scarface" characters

External links

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