The scene in Scarface where Tony is forced to watch Angel being dismembered with a chainsaw was based on a real incident that took place in Miami. While researching the screenplay, Oliver Stone was given access to DEA reports on the drug violence that was plaguing South Florida.
One of those reports described a cocaine deal in a Miami Beach hotel room that turned into an ambush. Colombian traffickers tied up the buyers in the bathroom and used a chainsaw to torture and dismember one of them in the shower while demanding to know where the money was hidden.
The scene also took inspiration from the 1980 murder of ATF informant Larry Vance Nash. Nash had infiltrated a Miami drug organization run by Cuban-American trafficker Mario Tabraue, but after the organization discovered he was working with federal agents, he was murdered.
According to testimony, Tabraue’s associates brought Nash’s body back to his property, attempted to dismember it with a machete, but then used a chainsaw to finish the job. The case later became part of the federal investigation that dismantled Tabraue’s organization.
Tabraue himself has also been cited as one of the real-life figures who helped inspire Tony Montana: he was a major Miami cocaine trafficker who lived extravagantly and kept exotic animals at his compound, much like Tony does in Scarface.
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