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Sean Penn and Al Pacino struggle with the impact of a life of crime in Carlito's Way |
Director: Brian de Palma
Cast: Al Pacino (Carlito Brigante), Sean Penn (David
Kleinfeld), Penelope Ann Miller (Gail), John Leguizamo (Benny Blanco), Luiz
Guzmán (Pachanga), Jorge Porcel (Saso), James Rebhorn (Bill Norwalk), Joseph Siravo
(Vincent Taglialucci), Frank Minucci (“Tony T” Taglialucci), Adrian Pasdar
(Frank Taglialucci), Viggo Mortensen (Lalin)
Every so often from the 1990s onwards, Al Pacino actually
bothered to act rather than rage in an orgy of self-parody. It’s the films
where he does really embrace the challenge, like Carlito’s Way, that reminds you what a damn fine actor he is. Carlito’s Way may also be a reminder of
what an overtly flashy director Brian de Palma is, but it’s a fine American
gangster thriller.
In 1975, Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) is released from
prison after five years on a legal technicality, exposed by his friend and lawyer
Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). Carlito makes a speech at his hearing, claiming he
is a reformed man who wants leave his criminal past behind him – and to the
shock of Kleinfeld and his colleagues in the underworld, he’s telling the
truth. Carlito attempts to go straight, and to rebuild a relationship with Gail
(Penelope Ann Miller), the young woman he left behind. Unfortunately, Kleinfeld
is not only becoming increasingly unpredictable due to his cocaine addiction,
but he is starting to blur the lines between criminal lawyer and plain criminal.
His actions continually threaten to drag Carlito back into the crime industry.
Carlito’s Way is a
fine semi-morality tale, a modern tragedy of a man who, every time he thinks
he’s out, “they pull me back in”. And of course we know that he’s on a hiding
to nothing, as the film opens with Pacino gunned down by an unknown assailant
and recounting most of the film’s plot (presumably) from beyond the grave. His
attempts are doomed largely because, in order to go straight quick and easy, he
has to raise money the only way he knows how – working in the very same flashy
nightclubs and among the career criminals that he should absolutely be
avoiding.
Carlito narrates the film with a weary reluctance, carefully
recounting the mistakes he made and why. It’s a device that largely manages to
avoid telling us the obvious, and actually gets us closer to, and like,
Carlito. It also helps that Pacino’s voice itself has a gruff poetry to it, and
he adds a Shakespearean grandeur to this familiar old-school tale of the crook
who wants out.
Pacino’s intensity works fantastically for the part. He
largely keeps the Pacino fireworks for the moments where they carry the most
impact. He and de Palma carefully sketch out a portrait of Carlito as a
world-weary man, who (try as he might) can’t leave behind the code and rules
that have governed his life as a criminal. He can’t escape the confines of
thinking like a criminal. Most terribly, his old-school sense of honour (few
actors convey dishevelled personal morality better than Pacino) is what will
doom him – he can’t break the code of the streets. It’s a terrific, empathetic
performance from Pacino.
Pacino also develops a sweet, loving relationship between
him and Penelope Ann Miller’s Gail. In the way of these films, Gail is a
stripper – she alternates between sweetly loving and overtly sexually
flirtatious as the plot demands – but Miller makes her feel like a real person.
She and Pacino have great chemistry (which, rumour has it, also carried over
into real life) and de Palma shoots their scenes with an old-school romanticism
and a steady camera, which contrasts with the disjointed sweep and Dutch angles
he uses elsewhere.
Sometimes these flashy angles get on my nerves. de Palma often
feels like he’s trying too hard, rather than stretching his muscles. Saying
that, he’s a master of the set-piece. The film has two action set-pieces and
both simmer with tension and inventiveness. One involves a bungled drugs deal
in a dingy bar. The other a thrilling chase sequence in Grand Central Station,
a deliciously shot mixture of great editing and daring extended single shots.
Sequences like this bring memories, inevitably, of Scarface and it’s tempting to see Carlito’s Way as a spiritual sequel – as if Tony Montana had been
arrested and changed his ways.
Perhaps a testament to how good Carlito’s Way is (or rather how much I enjoy it) is that I even
think Sean Penn is terrific in it. Penn is one of those actors I find tryingly
self-important (both professionally and personally). But his weaselly lawyer, a
hair-trigger addict, nowhere near as smart and adept as he thinks he is, is
marvellous. Penn’s performance is a whipper-cracker mix of slimy
self-confidence and arrogant blindness, with moments of curiously underplayed
vulnerability that makes it make sense why Carlito remains so loyal to him. It’s
one of Penn’s best, most controlled performances, a virtuoso performance of
whining weakness.
Carlito’s Way is
part pulp gangster thriller, part character study humanely outlining the
impossible difficulty of changing our stars. Carlito may be ready to jack in
the criminal world – but he continues to live the life of the criminal while
persuading himself he isn’t. The whole film has a tragic inevitability about it
– and would do even without the framing device. Carlito wants out – but he
wants to rush to get the investment he needs, and walking the shadow line is
the only thing he knows how to do. It’s a great modern tragedy.
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