Instead, Pacino turns in a riveting performance that's mostly understated, but busted wide open by some of the best bravura scenes of his career - take the scene where he's cornered in a bathroom with a gun and no bullets and hollers his way out of a deadly situation by talking the sickest smack you've ever heard. But boy, does it have heart! Pacino's eyes tell a story all their own - and they're not filled with his now-stereotypical "Hooo Ahhhs" that earned him that Scent of a Woman Academy Award just one year prior (something which inevitably stained Carlito's critical reaction at the time). The film's somber mood is balanced only by its larger-than-life performances, retro '70s threads, thrilling sequences, and plenty of sweaty disco tunes outside of Patrick Doyle's stellar score. No ifs, ands, buts about it - Carlito's Way is a tragedy. Oh, did I spoil that? Well, guess what, I didn't, because the film starts with him getting shot and then rewinds to fill in what leads up to that, so take a pill and deal with it. When it finally looks as if he's lined everything up for a life in the islands, his internal stopwatch starts and doesn't end until he gets shot in the finale. Its protagonist, Carlito Brigante, is released into the world after a prison stint and earnestly wants to go clean, yet nearly every old haunt and pal are knocking him further down the lawless ladder. Yet there's a Grand Canyon-sized chasm between them, for as much as Scarface is cold and harsh throughout its nearly three-hour running time, Carlito's Way wears its beating heart on its sleeve for all of its tight two-plus hours.Īnd Carlito's Way is all about time. The pictures also feature overlapping cast members, as well as other bits of trivia connecting them that you can easily Google. The comparisons between the two are apt considering that Carlito's Way was another gangster film featuring the re-teaming of director Brian De Palma and Al Pacino - and made just ten years after Scarface. Carlito's Way will always be the younger sibling to the king of coked-up gangster cinema. How could this happen? One word, two syllables: Scarface. Yet I can't help but think that this gold crown of a flick has gotten the short end of the popular stick. ![]() I mean, how can I ever say any film is the best when we live in a world where Jaws exists? Yet here I am, shouting it for all to read: I fking love Carlito's Way, which this week has its twentieth anniversary. Hell, ranking in general makes me uneasy. Calling a film your "favorite" is a weird thing. ![]() For twenty years I've been re-watching the same film, often re-enacting scenes in my head as if I were headlining a one-man show - a feat I'd pull off if not for the elephant tears I'd be shedding all over the stage.
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