Brian De Palma is one of Hollywood's most frustrating directors. Often chided by critics for his allusions to Hitchcock, De Palma is actually more guilty of sidestepping story and character development for the sake of a few big showy scenes.
Take any number of De Palma's movies, from "Blow Out" to "Body Double" to "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and you have examples of a few startling moments in the service of weak stories and weaker characters.For the purpose of this review, the most obvious comparison is De Palma's "Scarface," in which Al Pacino gave an over-the-top performance as a Hispanic drug-dealer surrounded by mistrust.
Like that picture, "Carlito's Way" casts Pacino as a Hispanic drug-dealer in a film that that is overblown, underwritten and with a wide array of unsympathetic characters.
Yet, there are some terrific moments, most notably a lengthy, very exciting and suspenseful chase through Grand Central Station toward the end of the film. But it takes more than two hours of boredom and sleaze to get there, and most audience members will probably feel it's not worth the wallow.
Pacino is Carlito Brigante, released from prison in 1975 as the film opens through the manipulations of his crooked lawyer, David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn, in a very good, edgy character performance).
Though the street-wise wheeler-dealers in his old neighborhood look upon Carlito as "a legend," he recognizes that most of his peers are gone - dead or in prison. The young have taken over, and Carlito no longer fits in. But that's OK, because he actually just wants to retire. He's looking for a stake to help him get out of New York and into a car-rental business in the Bahamas.
Kleinfeld helps Carlito get into a nightclub partnership, where he takes over running the joint and begins stashing the profits away. But, as you might expect, he is not able to completely step away from his reputation or his former life. He is repeatedly drawn into bad business.
Meanwhile, he tracks down an old girlfriend (Penelope Ann Miller), a dancer who tells him she is working in various shows in and around Broadway. In reality, she's a stripper. But Carlito doesn'tmind, he just wants her back.
There are overtones of other, better gangster films here, most prominently Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas." And Pacino gives a more restrained and rounded performance here than he did in "Scarface" (though he is unable to get a handle on that accent). But Miller seems miscast, the story is extremely predictable and the film is just too long and languid. It is also filled with excess.
"Carlito's Way" is really De Palma's way. It's too bad he didn't learn as much from Hitchcock's economy and tight storytelling as he did from the master's flamboyant suspense techniques.
The film is rated R for an overdose of violence, sex, nudity, profanity, vulgarity and drug abuse.