Nobody cares what anything’s about.

— Philbin (George Memmoli) from Phantom of the Paradise

Brian De Palma cares, and one thing often ignored in light of the Hitchcock criticism is the director’s pointed and cutting sense of humor. […] Often accused of being a cold, humorless director, De Palma’s output from The Wedding Party through Hi, Mom! (1970) reveals otherwise untold depths, and key to this success is another artist not often recognized for his comedic talents: Robert De Niro. […]

The De Palma/De Niro collaboration through three more films (Greetings, Hi, Mom!, and The Untouchables [1987]) is much more rewarding overall than De Niro’s more popular association with Martin Scorsese, which starts out brilliantly but devolves into been-there/done-that. De Palma seems to make sly note of that inevitable decline in The Untouchables with De Niro’s cartoonishly entertaining Al Capone—a post-modern riff on the actor’s own Travis Bickle with a dash of Rudolf Klein-Rogge’s Mabuse.

– Keith Uhlich om Brian De Palma i Senses of Cinema ^[1].