Review of Carlito's Way (1993) by Chet K — 03 Dec 2012

I really liked this movie the first few times I watched it as a teenager. Re-watching it recently, not as much... and I can't pin point why. For a gangster movie or a Pacino movie there are a lot better. Perhaps it tries to be a little too Scorsesian and it fails miserably at that. The story is really nothing new here - a reformed gangster trying to get out but, to paraphrase Michael Corleone himself, "just as he thought he was out, they pull him back in." There are really no variations or complexities to this plot line. On the drama side of the film, the biggest pleasure is probably seeing Sean Penn almost unrecognisable, brilliantly playing a character you really want to punch in the face.

What the movie does succeed in, however, is a handful of vintage De Palma long and carefully paced suspense sequences; such as the pool room sequence and the final chase sequence ending with a clever twist; the antithesis to a red herring. It is a pleasure to watch De Palma in his element, building tension so precisely through his signature obscure camera angles, long takes and voice overs that reveal the mechanics of Pacino's mind as he tries to predict every possible angle. However, whilst the voice over can be effective to build suspense in certain scenes, sometimes it come across too forceful and perhaps too convenient when revealing the emotional side of the story.

De Palma is a very important filmmaker, with a ability to masterfully create suspense quite organically and originally in his signature neo-Hitchcockian style, which no doubt has influenced many filmmakers to follow. However when viewing his films as a whole, they are much more limiting and the stories are not as effective. The drama in Carlito's Way for instance, is a little too simple and the characters are a little too 2 dimensional. Perhaps this movie would have worked better solely as a thriller - something like Snake Eyes.