: He wants to go straight, save $75k, and open a rental car business in the Bahamas.
Carlito’s primary conflict is not with the law, but with the gravitational pull of his former life. Upon his release from prison, he dreams of moving to paradise—specifically, renting cars in the Bahamas—with his girlfriend, Gail (Penelope Ann Miller). However, his sense of misplaced loyalty to his coked-up, corrupt lawyer, David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn), becomes his undoing. Kleinfeld is a mirror image of Carlito; while Carlito tries to leave the crime world, Kleinfeld is a legitimate professional who is desperately trying to enter it. Visual Mastery and the Tracking Shot Carlito’s Way movie review review: - Roger Ebert
Pacino delivers a restrained, soulful performance, trading his trademark "shouting" for a weary, internal monologue that provides the film’s narrative backbone. It is a film about the "code"—a set of ethics that the world has outgrown, leaving men like Carlito as relics in a landscape that no longer values honor. Final Verdict
The tagline for the film was "He was a survivor... but he couldn’t escape his past." Over the years, Carlito’s Way has influenced everything from Better Call Saul (the doomed lawyer archetype) to The Irishman (the aging gangster reflecting on wasted life).
In the pantheon of great gangster films, certain titles are instantly shouted from the rooftops: The Godfather (Parts I and II), Goodfellas , Scarface , and The Sopranos (as a long-form series). However, nestled just beneath that top tier—some argue triumphantly inside it—is Brian De Palma’s 1993 neo-noir masterpiece, .
The film opens with an ending. In a virtuoso long take at Grand Central Terminal, Carlito "Charlie" Brigante (Al Pacino) is shot while running for an escalator. He stumbles, bleeding, delivering the famous voice-over: "I’m just a gut feeling away from being a bodega splatter on somebody’s windshield."
: He wants to go straight, save $75k, and open a rental car business in the Bahamas.
Carlito’s primary conflict is not with the law, but with the gravitational pull of his former life. Upon his release from prison, he dreams of moving to paradise—specifically, renting cars in the Bahamas—with his girlfriend, Gail (Penelope Ann Miller). However, his sense of misplaced loyalty to his coked-up, corrupt lawyer, David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn), becomes his undoing. Kleinfeld is a mirror image of Carlito; while Carlito tries to leave the crime world, Kleinfeld is a legitimate professional who is desperately trying to enter it. Visual Mastery and the Tracking Shot Carlito’s Way movie review review: - Roger Ebert
Pacino delivers a restrained, soulful performance, trading his trademark "shouting" for a weary, internal monologue that provides the film’s narrative backbone. It is a film about the "code"—a set of ethics that the world has outgrown, leaving men like Carlito as relics in a landscape that no longer values honor. Final Verdict
The tagline for the film was "He was a survivor... but he couldn’t escape his past." Over the years, Carlito’s Way has influenced everything from Better Call Saul (the doomed lawyer archetype) to The Irishman (the aging gangster reflecting on wasted life).
In the pantheon of great gangster films, certain titles are instantly shouted from the rooftops: The Godfather (Parts I and II), Goodfellas , Scarface , and The Sopranos (as a long-form series). However, nestled just beneath that top tier—some argue triumphantly inside it—is Brian De Palma’s 1993 neo-noir masterpiece, .
The film opens with an ending. In a virtuoso long take at Grand Central Terminal, Carlito "Charlie" Brigante (Al Pacino) is shot while running for an escalator. He stumbles, bleeding, delivering the famous voice-over: "I’m just a gut feeling away from being a bodega splatter on somebody’s windshield."