#183: Carlito's Way

Carlito's Way (1993)
Directed by Brian De Palma
Written by David Koepp
Based on the novel by Edwin Torres
Starring Al Pacino, Penelope Ann Miller, Sean Penn, John Leguizamo, Viggo Mortensen, Luis Guzman.

I'm not one to hate on sequels for the sake of hating a sequel. Most movies should be given a chance to be as good or better than its predecessor. Remakes are the same way. A good movie is a good movie.

But sometimes a movie is released that makes absolutely no sense at all. More than a decade after De Palma's crime masterpiece a prequel called Carlito's Way: Rise to Power was released straight to video relying on the drawing power of Puff Daddy.

Who in their right mind would greenlight that idea? Yeah the market is demanding Puffy star in a prequel to a movie barely anyone remembers, yeah, great business sense. It went right to video so it's in movie purgatory anyway so the mystery behind this movie's existence is even more baffling.

Honestly, Carlito's Way is a great film and it's a shame more people haven't heard of it or seen it. All the gangster wannabe's make Scarface their Pacino film of reference and it's terrible. Come on, have you even watched Scarface all the way through? It's painful. It's long and boring with a few over the top catchphrases near the end. Oh and don't forget the mountain of cocaine, that was pretty stellar. And Cuban Pacino doesn't hold a candle to Puerto-Rican Pacino.

Pacino had more to work with in general on Carlito's Way. No, a coked-out Oliver Stone wasn't penning the script but he had a much better supporting cast and a less bloated run-time. Dave Kleinfeld is the reason I don't think Sean Penn is a hack. Well, he's been good but he's done some trash. I Am Sam was a pandering emotional flick about a handicapped Starbucks employee (redunant?) with a lame soundtrack of mediocre Beatles covers.

And Mystic River was not that good, especially his performance. He had no nuance, it held the emotional water of a bad Panic at the Disco song (redundant again?). He was yelling and crying, that's it.

But he hit one out of the park as a sleazy coke-addled attorney. His look was the inspiration for Ken Rosenberg in GTA: Vice City. Coke-heads aren't just a waste of space after all!

I remember watching this for the first time as a teenager. Mom and dad used to rent a bunch of old rentals at Video Stop (now Movie Experts). It's because of this that I was exposed to Goodfellas and other violent movies that most parents wouldn't let their kids watch at the time. My folks understoond the concept of context. They explained to me clearly that just because it was a movie didn't mean I should behave like the monsters portrayed on screen.

"No shit, I'm not an idiot!"

In hindsight I could have used a little more tact when coming up with a response. But my parents, whether they realize it or not are largely responsible for my love of film because of watching $1.00 rentals on the weekends when I was 12 or 13. Because of Goodfellas and Carlito's Way, I watched the Coen Brothers and Kubrick. And even though I could distinguish good storytelling from bad, I was also impressed by Penelope Ann Miller's nude scene. What can I say, for a 13-year-old to see any kind of boobs it's exciting...and awkward in the presence of family.