Carlito’s Way ***** (1993, Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, John Leguizamo, Viggo Mortensen, Adrian Pasdar, Ingrid Rogers, Luis Guzman, James Rebhorn) – Classic Movie Review 1237

Director Brian De Palma’s 1993 movie Carlito’s Way is a masterly mob thriller, a worthy successor to his own Scarface and The Untouchables, with some of his greatest set pieces.

His Scarface star Al Pacino gives a knockout performance as another Hispanic hoodlum, Puerto Rican ex-con Carlito Brigante, freed from jail after five years on a legal technicality engineered by his crooked lawyer, Dave Kleinfeld (played by Sean Penn). Carlito vows to live an honest existence this time and retire.

After his five years away, he finds his old neighbourhood much changed, and it’s now embracing the mid-Seventies and the people are relishing the trends of the new era. But he struggles to adapt to this new world – running a disco, taking up with his former girlfriend, club dancer Penelope Ann Miller, and dealing with an entire neighbourhood of diverse hoodlums.

And it all seems to be going well until Kleinfeld asks Carlito for a return favour by getting him out of a jam with an Italian mobster. Carlito ends up being dragged into the same criminal activities that landed him in jail in the first place.

De Palma returns to his best, most searing form with a typically intense, extravagant and committed slice of film-making. His direction is extraordinarily imaginative and dynamic in a movie overflowing with resonant details of time and its Spanish Harlem setting.

David Koepp’s man’s-man movie screenplay, based on the novels Carlito’s Way and After Hours by New York Supreme Court Judge Edwin Torres, is extraordinarily robust and penetrating, as a succession of ultra-tense scenes climax in a grandly staged, full-blooded finale. Inspiration for the novels came from Torres’ background, the East Harlem barrio where he was born and raised in an atmosphere of racial gangs, drugs and poverty.

Pacino first met Torres in 1973 while he was preparing for Serpico (1973) and Torres was in the middle of writing the novels on which the film is based and discussed them with Pacino. Twenty years later, Torres took Pacino to East Harlem to help him prepare of the role of Carlito.

An on-fire Pacino ensures that it is his show, rightly, in a stupendous turn of intelligence and force, though Penn, Miller, John Leguizamo, Viggo Mortensen, Adrian Pasdar, Ingrid Rogers, Luis Guzman, James Rebhorn, Joseph Siravo, Richard Foronjy and Jorge Porcel eagerly fill any of the few spaces he leaves available. Penn and Miller received Golden Globe nominations.

John Leguizamo.

Stephen H Burum’s cinematography, Patrick Doyle’s score and Richard Sylbert’s production designs are huge technical achievements. All their combined work helps to ensure that Carlito’s Way is a great, often breathtaking gangster movie. The film’s featured song, You Are So Beautiful, is performed by Joe Cocker.

Carlito’s Way is directed Brian De Palma, runs 145 minutes, is released by Universal, is written by David Koepp, based on the novels Carlito’s Way and After Hours by New York Supreme Court Judge Edwin Torres, is shot by Stephen H Burum, is produced by Martin Bregman, Willi Baer and Michael S Bregman. and scored by Patrick Doyle.

It premiered with an opening weekend box office taking of over $9 million. At the end of its theatrical run, it grossed over $36 million in the United States and $63 million worldwide but was not considered a success after it cost $30 million.

Yet later it was popular on home video and has gained a growing fan base, an increasing reputation helped by Roger Ebert’s thumbs-up opinion of it, good reviews in Europe and the influential French publication Cahiers du Cinéma naming it as one of the three best film of the Nineties.

A prequel titled Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power, based on the first novel, was filmed and released in 2005, with Jay Hernandez as Carlito.

British cartoonist Mel Calman died of a coronary thrombosis at the Empire, Leicester Square, London, while watching Carlito’s Way on 10 February 1994.

RIP James Rebhorn (here playing Norwalk), the prolific character actor whose credits include Homeland, Scent of a Woman and My Cousin Vinny, who died on March 21 2014, aged 65.

RIP producer Martin Bregman, who died on 16 June 2018, aged 92, and was best known for Scarface (1983), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Sea of Love (1989) and Carlito’s Way.

RIP Caesar Cordova, who plays the barber. He was born on 16 May 1936 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and died on 26 August 2020 in Atlantic City. He was also known for Scarface (1983), Nighthawks (1981), Where the Buffalo Roam, Cutter’s Way and Sharks’ Treasure (1975).

‘The world is yours.’… http://derekwinnert.com/scarface-classic-film-review-51/

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1237

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/