For director Brian DePalma, CARLITO’S WAY is like the flipside of his SCARFACE. In SCARFACE, Tony Montana desperately tries to cling onto the gangster life as it slips away from him. In CARLITO’S WAY, Al Pacino plays Carlito Brigante, an ex-con who tries to go straight after his lawyer David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn, MYSTIC RIVER) gets him out of a 30-year prison sentence on a technicality.
The film deals with much of the same issues as THE GODFATHER III where a criminal has a hard time breaking out of crime when he keeps all his old friends. There’s a great initial scene in the film where Carlito accompanies a cousin to a drug deal and Pacino’s manner speaks more than words about his uncomfortable feelings. After five years of being in jail, Carlito has a tough time dealing with the way the world has changed. He tries to rekindle a romance with dancer Gail (Penelope Ann Miller, THE GUN IN BETTY LOU’S HANDBAG), whose career is in a slump. He takes a job at a nightclub to save money to move to the Bahamas, but he keeps running into the kind of people he really wants to be avoiding. A good example is Benny Blanco from the Bronx (John Leguizamo, SUMMER OF SAM), a cocky up-and-coming pusher who wants to raise his status by getting to know Carlito.
Driving the film is the stellar performances of Pacino and Penn. How Tommy Lee Jones wins the Oscar for supporting actor and Penn doesn’t even get nominated is something I will never understand. Penn plays Kleinfeld as a nerdy weakling who begins to get an over-inflated sense of his own power through the use of drugs as well as dealing with gangsters on a daily basis. It’s simply one of the most amazing performances I’ve ever seen. Penn sheds every ounce of himself and becomes this character. Though the film’s storyline may seem familiar, the characters are originally brought to life by the wonderful cast. It’s a captivating drama.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
