Review of Carlito's Way (1993) by Allen G — 05 Apr 2013

Pretty good with the occasional cool moment- not the best piece of work by any of the people involved but not at all a failure from them either.

Penn's performance makes this one for me and sets the tone of a more serious approach than Scarface- by that I mean less over-the-top not necessarily more serious with it's themes. It also makes this less of a Pacino-show (not that I'm opposed to such films but, with this film featuring the Pacino more like the one we know today and less like the powerhouse of the 70s- it's good that it's not him carrying all the weight.).

This is still a fairly colourful work though, as you'd expect from DePalma, and there's plenty of crazy characters. Carlito himself though is a bit more accessible and certainly a more developed character than Tony Montana (I should stop with the Scarface comparisons but I watched that yesterday, God sake!)- Carlito is aware that he isn't always in control and it's one of the more fascinating aspects of this film- to watch the net close on him.

If we judge this on a Pacino-scale of movie quality- it's not as the top but it fits comfortably in with some good movies, one's from Pacino in the 70's too such as Serpico. Is it as good as Scarface though? No, not for me anyway.