Carlito's Way: It’s a CRIME More People Haven’t Seen This!

Carlito’s Way (1993)

Carlito’s Way is an unusually well scripted and crafted movie of the gangster genre. Directed by Brian DePalma and starring Al Pacino, as Carlito the movie is every bit as engrossing as their earlier collaboration Scarface.

Carlito is an ex-con who has every intention of going straight but is pulled back in to his old life of crime by misplaced loyalties and desire to be "a standup guy."

Contributing mightily to Carlito’s problems is his sleazy lawyer, Davey Kleinfeld, ably portrayed by Sean Penn in a performance of a lifetime. Penn manages to fulfill every cliche about scumbag lawyers and adds a few new wrinkles of his own, never missing a beat.

All Carlito wants to do is save up some money and buy into a car rental agency in the Bahama Islands. To do that, he becomes the manager of Kleinfeld’s discotheque, El Paraiso. The club caters to Puerto Ricans and is populated with scantily-clad senoritas, lovingly photographed in some very interesting camera angles.

Unfortunately, Carlito makes enemies with some of the club’s patrons and fails to exact suitable punishment for transgressions. This costs him in the end. In addition, Kleinfeld puts Carlito on the spot and involves him in some extremely dangerous double-dealing with the Italian mob. Director DePalma does a remarkable job of toying with the viewers emotions, alternately building and relieving tension until the unexpected climax. The movie ends as it began, and then the viewer realizes it was all a brief flashback, and finally understands the puzzling beginning of the film.

Carlito’s Way is an extremely well put together effort and Brian DePalma squarely deserves most of the credit. While this cannot be said of all his films, it is not too much to say about this one. This is a career effort and can stand up against films of all genres, not just gangster movies. While DePalma’s Scarface, Untouchables, and Dressed to Kill had many clever and stylish touches Carlito’s Way is head and shoulders above any of them. The photography tells the story perfectly, and with identifiable DePalma style, only this time not so self-conscious. Al Pacino’s voice-overs are a perfect punctuation to the camera work and the disco music soundtrack evokes the era to a T.

The script is way above average in intelligence, casting is well thought out except for one or two characters, and the acting is uniformly good to superior. The only weak performance was Gail (Penelope Ann Miller). It seemed that that character was added as an afterthought and Miller’s performance was just not very interesting or believable. Luis Guzman is the toadlike henchman who sells Carlito out, only to get his own contract canceled. Penn is absolutely brilliant as Kleinfeld and should have received the academy award for best supporting actor. Pacino, as usual, was also great, this time underplaying his role instead of his usual boisterous over-the-top rantings. This boy can act!

The only reason I can think of that this is not such a well known film is the title. It really doesn’t give much idea as to what the film is about. Maybe it should have been called "Carlito’s Way of Shooting and Getting Even With His Drug Dealer Enemies and Other Assorted Scumbags." Again, that much text might be hard to get on the video box. This is a five star film -- see it!

For those who are fans of the gangster genre I also recommend Scarface, The Untouchables, Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, Mobsters, Goodfellas, Casino, City Heat, Billy Bathgate, Murder, Incorporated, and The Godfather trilogy.