Sandbox / Scarface Tony Montana

Antonio "Tony" Montana

"Say hello to my little friend!"

Played By: Al Pacino

"What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, 'That's the bad guy.' So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!"

A former Cuban soldier and prisoner who was exiled to Miami by Fidel Castro and eventually becomes ingrained into the criminal underworld. He rises his way to the top, but then his life eventually starts to crumble apart around him.

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• Adaptational Heroism: He has far more moral standards and more likable characteristics than his original counterpart Tony Camonte. For one thing, it's pretty hard to imagine Camonte even having any second thoughts about something like killing children and putting any sense of morality before self-interest in the same that way Montana does. Even their last stands are quite a bit different from each other. In the original film, Camonte fights and goes down fighting against the police, whereas Montana fights off but ultimately loses to a rival druglord's death squad. Furthermore, Montana's incestuous feelings toward his sister are far more ambiguous here, while in the original film, Camonte leaves little to nothing the viewer's imaginations.
• Adaptational Name Change: His last name is changed to from Camonte to "Montana".
• Adaptational Nice Guy: His philosophy against harming children is just one of many things that separates him from Paul Muni's Tony Camonte, who lacks any sort of noble virtues whatsoever.
• Addiction-Powered: In his ever iconic last stand, he hypes himself up with some serious cocaine, which likely contributes to his endurance compared to the small army of nameless mooks he mows down with little to no effort.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Poor Tony. Villainous downfalls don't really get much more tragic than Tony Montana's. He gets shot in the back after gaining and then losing everything and all the while descending to madness while trying everything that he to stay in power. Shortly before that, he picks up the phone on his office desk for a moment, and then sets it back down. There's nobody left for him to call for help: His best friend Manny and dearly beloved sister Gina are both dead (The former by his own hand, and the latter wanted to kill him moments before as revenge), his former friend Frank has been dead for quite some time (again, because Tony had previously had him killed), Sosa is now his enemy who wants to have him killed for his prior failure to kill the journalist, his mother Georgina has verbally disowned him, and his wife Elvira has left him for good. At the end, Tony has absolutely nobody left to call for help, and for that matter, nothing left to live for.
• Ambiguous Situation: Are his feelings for his sister Gina really incestuous (subconsciously or otherwise)? Or, on the other hand, are they simply obsessive, overzealous (and ultimately dangerous) protectiveness because he views Gina as the one true source of light within his life?
• Ambition Is Evil: One of his primary motivations, for the majority of the movie, and are what ultimately lead to his downfall. Although Downplayed earlier on in the film, since at that point, while he is certainly ambitious, he still wants to help improve the lives of his family and and his friends for the better. It's only "after" he fulfills said ambitions, and becomes a powerful drug kingpin, that this trope is in full effect. This is when Tony's life slowly but sure begins to crumble around him and loses sight of this original goal. It's bad that it gets to the point where he either alienates, kills, or makes enemies with all of his potential allies, friends, or relatives, and it eventually leads to his own downfall at the hands of one of said former allies.
• Animal Motifs: Pacino watched the original film and he noted that in it, Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) came off as "a big ape" type, and so he tried to emulate that to the best that he possibly could in his performance as Tony Montana in the remake. Alejandro Sosa lampshades this even when he calls him a "fucking little monkey".
• Anti-Hero: He starts out as this at the beginning of the film, coming over to America with his friends in order to start a new life for the better, while also trying his absolute best to help provide for his estranged family in anyway that possibly he can. But as the movie goes on, he becomes progressively worse to the point where he becomes a full fledged Villain Protagonist who kills in best friend in an impulsive fit of rage, attempts to kill an innocent journalist to avoid having to go to prison for three to five years, (though in all fairness, he does call off the attempted hit when he sees that the journalist has a wife and two children with him) and becomes overly protective of his sister Gina to the point that eventually results in her death at the hands of a rival cartel. And Tony himself dies at the end after losing everything. But hey, he goes out like a true badass after taking plenty of bad guys with him, so there's that at least.
• At Least I Admit It: Basically the whole point of his entire "say goodnight to the bad guy" speech essentially boils down to Tony telling everyone who is out there giving him funny looks at the restaurant that at the very least he acknowledges his own faults and slip-ups instead of pinning blames on others like they all do.
• Ax-Crazy: He is essentially the embodiment of this trope, particularly within the second half of the movie. In general, he's more than ready to use the various lethal weapons at his disposal, mostly guns of course, but he can use knives and other weapons as well when needed.
• Bad Boss: Downplayed. Admittedly, he is one of the less-egregious examples of this trope as most of the time, he is a fairly reasonable one. However, his Hair-Trigger Temper often gets in the way of things. He kills his best friend and dragon Manny Ribera without so much as a second thought upon seeing him in a mansion while wearing bathrobes with his sister Gina, but only just finding out afterward that the two of them had just been married. Later on, the combination of physical pain from being shot by Gina, emotional shock at seeing her gunned down by a henchmen, and then combine with all of the cocaine that he's snorted leaves him virtually unable to react as his trusted man Chi-Chi is killed by more henchmen all the while begging him to open the office door so that he can survive the shootout.
• Berserk Button: He absolutely does not like it whenever other guys put the moves on his little sister Gina. Played in a tragic way after he finds Manny with Gina and and then impulsively kills him over it. He also reacts relatively violently when he learns that Sosa's henchman Alberto the Shadow expects him to be okay with callously killing innocent women and children.
• Big Bad: After he arranges for Frank Lopez's murder and then proceeds to and take over everyone and everything that was once Frank's, he's arguably now the biggest villain of his own story. But the real villain is Sosa, who is ultimately much worse than he is. Though by the end of the movie, he ultimately turns out to be little more than a Big Bad Wannabe with delusions of grandeur, who makes a bunch of fatal mistakes which ultimately result in his own tragic death.
• Big Brother Bully: Over the course of the film, he becomes extremely controlling and possessive of Gina, starting to yell at her harshly. When he finds out that his best friend Manny is in love with her, he is lost in a quiet rage and kills him without so much as any second thoughts, and then has his henchmen bring the now devastated wreck Gina over to his mansion.
• Blood Knight: Many shootouts and fights Tony gets into he enjoys practically every minute of it. Special mention goes to Freedomtown at the start of the movie.
  Tony: "I kill a communist for fun, but for a green card, I gonna carve him up real nice."
• But Not Too Foreign: He claimed that his father was an American during the opening interrogation scene.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Look no further than his "So say goodnight to the bad guy!" Speech. Although arguably Downplayed to some extent. As he isn't necessarily going around gloating about being evil and committing his crimes left and right, nor does he commit crimes For the Evulz. Rather, he simply acknowledges his flaws and mistakes, all the while accepting that he is ultimately not that fantastic of a person, while simultaneously denouncing the people in the restaurant as hypocrites who would all rather point their fingers at guys like Tony as if he is the bad guy rather than accepting their own mishaps in the way that he does.
• Cigar Chomper: Once he can afford them of course, he basically chomps on them like they were candy bars.
• The Corrupter: To his sister Gina, who begins acting out and rebelling against her mother once Tony reenters into her life. Though to be fair, it is unintentional on Tony's part, and he does genuinely try his absolute best to be the exact opposite, he just does a poor job of it.
  Georgina: "Why do you have to hurt everything you touch? Why do you have to destroy everything that comes your way?"
• Death by Irony: He falls from a relatively high ground over people around him into the swimming pool, next to a statue carrying a globe with his "The World Is Yours" motto.
• Death Seeker: Arguably, he becomes this of sorts in the end of the movie. He has no one left and seemingly no reason to keep living, and he probably knows that the film's climax will be his last stand (unless he escapes, but he makes no attempt to try, opting instead to mow down dozens of Sosa's thugs). Easily the biggest hint of this is that, just before grabbing the M16, he tells the body of his recently-dead sister "I'll see you soon, okay?" And then proceeds to take as any of Sosa's goons with him as he can before he takes a lethal bullet.
• Defiant to the End: And of the most iconic, and unforgettable examples in all of cinema at that; At the very end of the film, Tony is on the verge of nearing the end of his legendary Last Stand; his rifle is gone and Sosa's men are now unloading their weapons into him. Yet Tony refuses to go down, and instead just keeps on railing away at his numerous attackers, right up until The Skull sneaks up behind by climbing through the back of his mansion office window, and then proceeds to shoot him in the back with his shotgun.
  Tony: "Go ahead! I take your fucking bullets! You think you kill me with bullets? I take your fucking bullets! Go ahead!"
• Despair Event Horizon: When he sees Manny and Gina living in a mansion together, he instantly kills Manny in a fit of anger, without any hesitation or so much as a second thought. However, he subliminally regrets acting on impulse like that, and then he truly cements it when one of Sosa's henchmen kills Gina, thus culminating in an Unstoppable Rage which sees him annihilate a dozen or so of Sosa's troops, before he himself gets killed by The Skull.
• Dies Differently In The Adaptation: In the novel, Tony dies from a combination of the army of men ripping his body apart with bullets, and also an explosion caused by one of the bullets hitting the grenade inside the launcher of his rifle.
• The Don: Ultimately Deconstructed. Tony may very well be a powerful gangster, which is of course he always wanted, but at the end of the day, he really is just a smug, manchild who is really all just too stuck in his own fantasy world to see the truth. Once he becomes a powerful crime lord, he is driven way too much by his own pride and greed contributing to his negative attitude, and further distances himself from the people close to him. He still has his personal moral codes of honor however, but even that is sadly proven to only get him ever so far in a cutthroat world of drug dealers.
• Doomed Moral Victor: Averted. He does not kill the Bolivian anti-drug activist because children and a woman were put in danger by the attempted hit. Later on, this is played straight however, with the circumstances eventually leading to Tony's death.
• Drunk with Power: By the second half of the movie, he's let his drug empire get into his head, even becoming a royal pain to those he's supposed to like and throwing his weight around where he shouldn't be.
• Dying Alone: A more violent variation, but by the end of the film, he has nothing left except to kill as many of Sosa's goons as possible before he himself gets killed.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: One of the most iconic and memorable examples of this in cinema; he goes out battling a small army of hitmen sent to kill him, all the while shouting obscenities, and taking a good chunk of them with him before the Skull uses stealth to get and around him and then ultimately shoots him from behind.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He sincerely tries the absolute best that he can do to provide for his working-class mother Georgina, but the relationship is strained due to her being aware of Tony's criminal activities. She refuses any money and demands he leave, which he does soon afterwards. He eventually gets verbally disowned by his mother, but this seemingly doesn't stop Tony from still genuinely caring about her (even if he is not very good at it).
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Deconstructed. He sincerely tries the absolute best that he can do to take care of those that he loves even as he becomes an increasingly bigger and more violent criminal and acting increasingly more and more like a general jerk. His affection for Gina in particular is very strong, although laced with incestuous implications. Subverted later in the film, as he eventually becomes a malignant presence in their lives when he drives Elvira away, kills Manny because he proposed to Gina, and locks Gina up in his own mansion out of a fanatical obsession with "protecting" her. Played straight again later on though, as he clearly regrets killing Manny, and is visibly saddened when Gina is killed by one of Sosa's thugs, and it may have even contributed to Tony's death
• Even Evil Has Standards: Tony Montana absolutely won't kill any children. He also has a hands-off policy on harming women.
• Exact Words: He invokes this upon Frank Lopez during the middle of the film. After surviving Frank's attempt to have Tony killed inside of the Babylon Club, Tony confronts Frank in his office, while the latter cowardly begs Tony not to kill him, and promises to give Tony everything if he doesn't. And indeed, Tony follows up on Frank's offer, he takes all of Frank's belongings and his position, and then also takes Elvira as his girlfriend, and then also takes some of Frank's henchmen (namely Ernie) to serve under his wing, and then he technically honors his word, he doesn't kill Frank. [[spoiler:Manny does! At Tony's behest, as a proxy for him, and Frank still dies, pathetically at that.
• Fatal Flaw: Actually, there are definitely quite a few things that had Tony done differently, he might have gotten an easier time in the end and maybe even survived.
  • His Hair-Trigger Temper would certainly qualify. It causes him to make very unwise decisions without considering the long-term consequences, like betraying Frank by mooching Elvira from him, then killing him after he finds out, killing Sosa's hitman Alberto and later disrespecting the very angry Sosa when he calls about the botched hit instead of taking the time to explain what happened (granted, who knows how Sosa would reacted, but Tony could have at least planned out his next course of action should the former attempt to retaliate regardless), spurring the siege of the compound. It also leads him to kill his best friend Manny on impulse without a second thought, and then hauls his sister away, instead of making preparations to combat and/or escape from Sosa's clutches.
  • Also his Greed. The whole chain of events that ultimately leads to his downfall starts out when he breaks off with his banker because he doesn't want to have to pay higher rates for having his money laundered. Considering the large amounts of money he brings in, he should be thanking the gods that it is even a possibility.
  • His obsessive, overzealous protectiveness of his sister, combined with his aforementioned brashness, leads him to be disowned by his mother, kill his best friend Manny, which devastates Gina enough to the point where she attempts to murder him, then she gets killed by Sosa's hitmen, which may have contributed to Tony's death as well.
  • How can one possibly forget about his unstable addiction to cocaine. This factor certainly didn't make the above mentioned problems any better (save for in the climax where it may have dulled his pain sensors and helped him fight off dozens of Sosa's foot soldiers, but that was already after he had already lost everything by that point, not in spite of).
  • Early on, Frank tells Tony "Never get high on your own supply". Naturally, this has the literal reading of "Don't throw your product up your nose when you should be selling it", and Tony violates that rule, getting ever more unstable. However, it can also be read as "Don't get too full of yourself". Tony's ego drives him further and further, thinking he is incapable of bad decisions, thinking he's untouchable.
• Friend to All Children: He certainly has shades of this despite how it's been said that his drug-dealing operation could have eventually impacted children's lives if he had stayed in control. Tony is fairly pleasant to the two kids he that talks to while Manny tries to pick up a chick at the pool. He says that he'd really like to have kids with Elvira (which never happens, which is partly what starts the very public fight that finally drives Elvira away), and of course, he will not kill children.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: He's a former Cuban Army soldier who gradually becomes a fearsome Miami cocaine kingpin, and quickly becomes known for being quite fearless and ruthless towards his rivals. His military training could easily be used to explain his deadly skills with firearms, such as an assault rifle and grenade launcher that he uses to kill dozens of enemy gangsters with in the final battle.
• Getting High on Their Own Supply: Does this in the second half of the movie despite being warned not to otherwise By Frank and Elvira. This contributes to his growing list of problems that make his life increasingly more difficult, and it causes him to be less weary of real problems until it's already too late by that point. The only good it did him was in the climax where it helped him mow down several of Sosa's mooks in his mansion, but it still didn't save his life outright and that was when he resolves to kill as many of them as possible because that was all that he had left to do, and these problems might not have been as severe to begin with if Tony hadn't become a cocaine addict.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has a huge scar on one side of his face; at the very beginning of the film, that he says he got it in an accident when he was just a child.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He is aggressive and is almost always on the brink of a cocaine-fueled rage. Nearly everything sets him off, especially people who go near his sister. Not even his best friend Manny is safe from this, as Tony kills him on the spot as soon as he sees them together.
• The Hero Dies: Our Nominal Hero gets killed by his now enemies at the end of the film.
• Honor Before Reason: In the last third of the film, he is contacted by Sosa to kill a journalist who is trying to bring down the latter's cocaine empire and put him in prison, and he initially agrees to carry out the hit. But that changes when he sees that said journalist has brought his family with him, so he attempts to call off the hit, but Sosa's henchmen Alberto persists on going ahead with it anyways, and so Tony kills him, even though doing this puts him in Sosa's crosshairs.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Loses everything by the end, including his life. Even before Sosa's death squad attacks his mansion, it's implied his criminal empire is not long for this world as he's become completely unhinged from having killed his best friend Manny in a terrible rage and he's already killed or driven away everyone else who could have helped him. A couple of his men are shown watching him standing on the balcony, clearly unnerved and questioning his ability to function among themselves.
• Hypocrite: He rages at his sister Gina for partying at the same nightclub he does, and at Elvira for abusing drugs despite snorting mountains of cocaine himself, and previously not doing anything to stop her.
• Iconic Outfit: There's the red Hawaiian-style shirt he wears during the infamous chainsaw scene, the disco-styled, wide collared suits he wears when he starts making lots of money, and perhaps most famously, the dark blue pinstriped suit that he wears when he goes after Sosa's hitmen who have been sent to his mansion in order to kill him.
• Immigrant Patriotism: Tony's strong disdain with Castro's communist Cuba make him appreciate the much more capitalistic America very strongly... At least, that is until he rises to the top of Miami drug trade and yet still feels unfulfilled and resentful under said capitalism.
• Implacable Man: His bravery and loyalty is what makes him such a vital asset to his boss or his partner at the moment. Although his cocaine addiction has made him much more of a liability.
• Incest Subtext: Tony's violent protectiveness regarding his sister Gins has more than a few shades of this, which is a callback to the original film that this one is a remake of.
• It's All About Me: Starts to have this sort attitude after he finished up with his criminal empire.
• Jerkass: He, believe it or not, is not quite as ruthless as his original counterpart, but despite having some noble tendencies here and there, one can still easily see him at his absolute worst as one of these. His drug-dealing game, along with some other objectionable things he does, has led to some viewers having a big problem with him. He has shown jealousy and recklessness, is harsh with his sister when she starts making love to a guy she met at a club, mouths off at bankers and such who he feels would short-change him, was gearing up to execute a man he did not know as he became more drunk with power until childrens' lives were on the line, and his anger has been a danger towards others, including himself, and ultimately kills his best friend in a blind fit of rage. He appears to fight with just about everyone sooner or later except his mother (who herself is very much sickened by his criminal habits), but still...
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He still won't kill kids even when his own life was starting to fall apart around him, and the very first thing he does when he makes it out on top is buy Gina her own beauty parlor for her to work in, in hopes that she doesn't end up like him. In addition, when things were really starting to go downhill, he did not verbally abuse his minion, Ernie, despite being furious. All in all, while he does plenty of objectionable, things, he still has people he cares and his own code of honor which he abides by.
• Kick the Dog: At Times. Although some instances here and there are debatable to say the least.
  • Stealing Frank's girlfriend Elvira right out from under his nose, and then later on starting her addiction to cocaine. Later blowing up at her for this.
  • He killed his best friend Manny without a second thought simply because he thought he made it clear to him to stay away from his sister Gina. Although granted, he did feel awful about it when he finally came to his senses.
  • Leaving Chi-Chi to die due to being a mix of likely incoherence over Gina's death and not rushing fast enough to help while Chi-Chi begs desperately Tony to open the door.
• Klingon Promotion: Has his boss Frank Lopez killed, and from then on he proceeds to take over control of not only his businesses and position, but also his woman.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Oh boy. Where do we begin? Touch his sister, and you may very well just die at the hands of his bullet. Isn't that right, Manny?
• Large Ham: Every line that comes out of his mouth is scenery-eating and hammy. Somewhat justified later on when he's high as a kite on a blow of cocaine.
  Tony: "Say hello to my little friend!"
• Lonely at the Top: In spades. He even lampshades this when he's sitting miserably in a restaurant with his wife and the closest he had to a proper friend who can barely stand him any more at this point.
• Made of Iron: Deconstructed. The only reason Tony lasted so long against Sosa's hit crew was because he snorted so much cocaine it dulled the pain in his body and the fact he was too angry to die. Tony still could feel some pain as he recoiled and winced when he got shot, and he sure as hell felt the point-blank range shotgun blast to his back.
• Meaningful Name: Montana is the Spanish word for Mountain and Mountain usually stands for peak, prominence and summit, and Tony definitely wants to reach the summit, is able to climb to the position of the number one drug boss in Miami, and potentially the whole United States for that matter, and he does rise to prominence as the King of Miami. However after he reaches the prominence is when his Mountain lists of issues and flaws eventually reaches its peak and contributes to his ultimate downfall.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After killing Manny in a fit of rage, he feels nothing but sorrow and regret about it.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Hoo boy, he absolutely does not like anyone getting around his sister. Not even his own best friend is safe from his overzealous protectiveness.
• The Napoleon: His height is confirmed to be around 5'6".
• Never Going Back to Prison: What motivates him into making a new deal with Sosa, as Tony can't stomach jail anymore, not even a short three year stint.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: While this is shown to be true in the movie, it's made especially clear in the video game, where you simply can't shoot civilians, because that's not in-character for Tony.
  • Although Tony does make an exception later on when he attempts to kill an innocent journalist to avoid having to go to prison, but even then, he immediately backs out once he sees that the journalist brought his wife and children with him
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: It's widely believed he was at least partly inspired by a real life Cuban-American Miami drug lord named Mario Tabraue.
• Noble Demon: While he is definitely a murderous drug kingpin with some seriously self-destructive tendencies, he has still at least has standards compared to most of the other villainous people of the film. The noble aspects of him start to slowly diminish over the course of the story, as he becomes a drug addict and his Hair-Trigger Temper worsens, though it never goes away completely and he still keeps his Never Hurt an Innocent attitude (until he agrees to kill an innocent journalist for Sosa, but even then, he immediately backs out once he sees that the journalist brought his wife and children with him).
• One-Man Army: And a legendary example at that; Tony uses an assault rifle and grenade launcher to kill about a few dozen or so henchmen in the climax. However, he didn't avoid getting fatally shot in the back.
  • However, this is played completely straight in the video game adaptation.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Admittedly, most of his killed victims weren't very good people. The only one who didn't deserve to die was his dear friend Manny Ribera, who's only crime was being truly in love with Tony's sister, Gina which Tony would not allow any off. Though in all fairness, Tony did genuinely regret doing instantly afterwards. The likes of these guys on the other hand, did though and as a result are much more clear-cut examples of this trope:
  • Emilio Rebenga, a military man who tortured countless people under Castro's regime, and also killed Frank Lopez's brother, which is how Tony, Manny, Omar, and Lopez are able to meet each other in the first place. He is also the first person Tony kills in the movie.
  Tony: You tell Lopez I kill Rebenga for free. For a green card? I carve him up real good.
  • Hector the Toad, who carved up Tony's friend Angel to death with a chainsaw both to force Tony to pay him money and for his own sadistic cheer all the while forcing Tony to witness it, and then attempting to do the same thing to Tony, no tears are shed when tony puts a bullet in his head and kills him. Arguably even more of a Starter Villain than Emilio Rebenga, since he actually posed something of an actual threat to Tony, unlike Rebenga who had no advantages, and instead he opted to flee for his own life.
  • While Tony didn't kill Omar Suarez, he still disliked the guy quite a bit, especially since made the arrangements for Tony and Manny to kill Emilio Rebenga with the intention of Lopez and his allies to use as leverage against Tony, and he may have also purposefully set up the fateful meeting with Hector the Toad hoping that they would both get killed his chainsaw (and if Sosa is to be believed, was also a police informant who put other gangsters in prison), and thus, he had no objections to Sosa's henchmen killing him.
  • Frank Lopez (who also dies pathetically) after he previously orchestrated Tony's murder of Emilio Rebenga, and then used as leverage to extort Tony with, sent two hitmen to kill Tony (one of them even killed a stage performing clown just to get closer to him), who were both killed by Tony instead, and then, after getting what he wants from Lopez and promising not to kill him, he doesn't, Manny does instead, with Tony using him as a proxy. Although Downplayed with Lopez since, while he may have been a drug kingpin who attempted to kill Tony, he is admittedly one of the more likeable characters in the film, and he did it because Tony was trying to steal Elvira from him.
  • Mel Berstein plays this straighter than Lopez, since Lopez was at least somewhat likeable. A textbook Smug Snake who thought he could get Tony underneath his crushing thumb, and even tried to extort him with his knowledge of Emilio Rebenga's murder. Long story short, Tony proved him wrong in a spectacular fashion.
  • Sosa's nutcase henchmen Alberto the Shadow, who over zealously attempted to blow up a journalists car even while his wife and children were inside. While this action may have Gotten Tony marked for termination by Sosa, it's still next to impossible to feel sorry for Alberto.
  • Finally, Sosa's numerous henchmen who attempt to kill Tony in the climax, they kill his bodyguards, and especially the specific one who kills Tony's dearly beloved sister Gina.
  • Furthermore, while Sosa and The Skull ultimately kill Tony and his remaining allies and loved ones, and on the surface, seem to get away clean with their crimes, it is heavily implied that they might still go to prison for them, since Tony failed to kill said journalist, thus allowing him to reveal Sosa to the world.
  • This also goes for those that he targets in the video game alternate universe sequel.
• Pet the Dog: He gives Ernie a job after blowing away Frank Lopez and Mel Bernstein right in front of him. Also, killing Alberto the Shadow, rather than simply letting him blow up a car with an innocent woman and her two children inside of it.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He doesn't seem to like working alongside Colombians. He also derisively refers to Italian mobster guys as "Guineas" (which is also funny considering Pacino himself is an iconic Italian-American). He also uses the slur "maricon" (faggot).
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Early on in the film, he mentions that he grew up watching old school Hollywood tough guys like James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and the likes.
• Properly Paranoid: Much of Tony's aggressive accusations are passed off as him merely being Paranoid, but there have been times where he's actually on the right. For example when Mel shakes him down for protection money, using his killing of previous killing of Emilio Rebenga as leverage against him. Tony immediately figures out that Frank Lopez is setting him up for extortion, as he is the only one outside of Freedomtown to possibly know about that hit.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: At the start of the film, he is fleeing Cuba to the United States with the intention of starting a new life for himself and his friends, while also looking to provide for his estranged family, and while he does have criminal aspirations, he doesn't let said aspirations cause him to lose sight of his principles nor does it negate his goals being his desire to help his family and friends. But as the film progresses, this gradually becomes less and less the case and in the process he blows away, kills, or makes enemies with just about everyone he could have potentially once called a friend. He loses everything and has no one left, only opting to take many of Sosa's death squad as he can before he gets killed by them in retaliation for his previous double-crossing of their boss.
• Rasputinian Death: He takes an improbable number of bullets right to the torso in the final shootout with Sosa's death squad in the climax, and isn't even fazed by it, but this might just be explained by the fact that he had his face buried in a mountain of coke just moments before. It ultimately takes a shotgun blast to the back at close range from behind and a fall off of a balcony to finally kill him once and for all.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Burning hot Red to Manny Ribera and Alejandro Sosa's ice cold Blue. Manny is generally more level-headed and easy going than the brash, Hot-Blooded and impulsive Tony, who's always looking for a fight. And Sosa is coldly pragmatic and ruthless.
  Tony: There were fucking children in the car!
  Sosa: When you move 400 kilos a month, it is imperative that you do kill children.
• Redemption Earns Life: In the game, he survives the climactic shootout in the film with plenty of bitter lessons learned (such as giving up drugs), and he uses them as his motivation to finally take down Sosa once and for all.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: At the film's climax, after Gina's death, leading to the film's most iconic moment, where he guns down hordes of Sosa's goons, before he himself is killed.
  • In the game where he survives said shootout, he's on one for the rest of the story against Sosa.
• Sanity Slippage: He gets even crazier and more increasingly unhinged after his coke addiction settles in.
• Seven Deadly Sins: He's ravaged by all of them, save for maybe Sloth. Among these, easily his most fatal flaws are his Wrath and his Pride.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: When his life starts going down the drain, he starts wearing a more professional looking dark blue suit with a matching waistcoat and dark red tie, in contrast to the loudly colored, wide collared, tie-less suits from before; when shit's hit the fan, he stops wearing the tie, his suit gets covered in blood and coke, and he wears it as he makes his last-stand against Sosa's hit squad sent to kill him.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Lampshaded by Elvira.
  Elvira: "Can't you stop saying fuck all the time?!"
• Slouch of Villainy: Tony has atrocious body posture whenever he's sitting in his office chair.
• The Smart Guy: Before he gets addicted to coke and flies off the ego train, Tony is smart enough to try and game the system, playing the role of a poor victim of the Cuban government before going balls to the wall in the drug trade. He made it a point, even as he and Manny are bilingual fresh off the boat immigrants, to tell Manny to tell La Migra that they were in a "sanitarium" (a long-term, higher cost health resort for things like tuburculosis) rather than prison. Manny fucks it up and says they were in "sanitation" instead, but Tony knows his audience then and quickly susses out that Frank and Mel are low level snakes rather than big time players. Of course, that's only in the first act.
• Smug Snake: By the second half of the film, he is firmly in this territory. He stands up to brag about how he's the apparent "bad guy" of the town while he's really losing control of both himself and his empire due to his Cocaine addiction and self-destructive anger issues.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He survives the shootout at the mansion in Scarface: The World Is Yours.
• The Starscream: To Frank Lopez in the middle of the film, and later on, to Sosa.
• Stimulant Speedtalk: Begins to exhibit this once he starts Getting High on Their Own Supply, though he substitutes high-speed conversation for protracted rambling and screamed diatribes. In particular, after taking a bump just prior to the car-bombing mission from Sosa, Tony begins quietly ranting once he realizes that there are two children in the car until he loses composure and starts screaming at Alberto. Then he shoots Alberto in the head before he can trigger the bomb and continues shouting at the man's corpse.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: After taking out a score of Sosa's hitmen with his grenade launcher, Tony stops shooting and starts taunting them as though he's already won, allowing the remaining henchmen to get into cover and open fire on him all at once. He survives that barrage and keeps taunting them, seemingly convinced that he's immune to bullets. Cue the Skull walking up behind him... And then blasting him away with his shotgun
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Tony insists on being hands-on in his approach to problems, to the point that he opts to cut out the middleman and deliver the coke to Frank in person. However, this backfires on him when he forces Manny off a deal with a money launderer in favour of dealing with the guy in person, causing a great deal of friction with his friend and lieutenant as a result... only to find too late that the money launderer was an undercover cop, triggering the conflict of the film's second half.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Tony starts out the film as a crook, but he is still at least somewhat level-headed, and is not as much of a danger to himself and to others around him. It's not until he gains power later on in the film that he allows himself to become a cocaine-addicted wreck. He constantly curses and begins to act like a cantankerous prick towards even some of his closest associates or possible friends over minor disagreements, and he even gets called out on it by almost everyone close to him. His impulsive behavior simply does not allow him to take the hint soon enough...
• The Usurper: Takes Frank's life together with his criminal enterprise and luxury mansion. He also recruits Frank's trustier men (like Ernie), and then liquidates Frank's slimier collaborators (namely Mel Berstein), and then makes Frank's mistress his wife.
• Villainous Incest: Possibly. Tony can't have his sister and consequently doesn't want anyone else to have her either. This idea is lampshaded by her right before she's gunned down by Sosa's assassins. Though to be fair, this is ultimately just speculation, it also equally possible that he views Gina as his Morality Pet (a role which she clearly doesn't like) and is overprotective of her as a result.
• Villain Protagonist: He may be a Noble Demon, with people that he care about and a personal code of honor, but at the end of the day, this doesn't change the simple fact that he is still The Don of Miami, and a power-hungry drug lord who eventually becomes increasingly more violent and dangerous as the movie progresses, and all of the people that he may have once called his friends and/or loved ones are either done with him, are dead, want to kill him, or even some combination of those aforementioned three things.
• Villainous Breakdown: Very often due to his Hair-Trigger Temper, but the most prominent one would have to be in the finale. Particularly after one of Sosa's hitmen kills Gina, then Tony truly snaps and proceeds to kill as many of Sosa's small army that have been sent to his mansion to kill him as possible. All the while shouting out obscenities and barely reacting at all to getting shot. It's only when The Skull Sneaks behind him from the balcony window into his office, and then proceeds to blast him away with his shotgun and over a railing, does Tony finally stop
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: He would only ever go after men who actively challenge him. Bar the one time he slaps Gina for sneaking into the men's bathroom at the Babylon Club to make out with a guy that she just met.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The indirect reason why Sosa puts a hit on him (the main direct reason of course being that he failed to kill the journalist). When ordered to activate a bomb on a reporter's car to stop him from testifying about Sosa's criminal activities, he refuses to do it because the reporter's wife and children are also in there and he even kills one of Sosa's hitmen for trying to activate the bomb anyway. The reporter lives to testify, as such, Sosa's pissed off, and then it all goes downhill from there.
• Yandere: In the latter part of the movie, he becomes more and more violently and questionably possessive over his sister, culminating in him killing Manny when he finds out that he's been pursuing a relationship with her.