A knife-wielding man dressed up as Tony Montana from the 1983 classic “Scarface” taunted police during a real-life standoff in L.A. … and stayed in character the entire time, TMZ has learned.

It all went down at an apartment complex in Hollywood around 10pm Tuesday night — cops were called to the scene to respond to a man wearing a Tony Montana-style white suit (with the big pimped-out collar) who began screaming at people while waving a machete.

When cops arrived, a police negotiator tried to convince the man to surrender peacefully — but he responded by screaming various quotes from “Scarface” … while pointing to a DVD copy of the movie he was carrying in his non-machete hand.

Sources at the scene tell us the Tony-alike taunted police by calling them, “f**king cops” … and threatening to cut them.

After a 6-hour standoff, cops convinced the man to throw his machete down into the apartment swimming pool … but officers were forced to use tear gas to take the suspect into custody.

Say goodnight to the bad guy.