Scarface with heart (Carlito's Way (DVD))

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	Carlito's Way (DVD)
Date:	07/08/00 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Performance and direction in perfect harmony

Disadvantages: Not exactly a happy film

Given a doom-laden feel by the fact that Carlito (Al Pacino) is narrating the whole film while he is dying from a bullet wound, this is one of Brian De Palma's very best films. It's a classic crook-growing-straight tale, culled from novels written by Edwin Torres, a former judge.

Escaping jail on a technicality in the mid-70s, former gangster Carlito Brigante returns to the barrio to piece his life together, find the girl he once loved (Penelope Ann Miller), and escape crime forever. But nothing works out - some people (Luis Guzman, John Leguiziamo) expect him to return to crime, and his lawyer (Sean Penn) can't stay out of trouble. Eventually, his plans go awry, and his loyalty to Penn forces him into one last brush with the law that destroys him forever.

With a forceful score from Patrick Doyle, De Palma keeps the action racing, and some of the set-pieces (the escape from killers based around the performance of a pool trick shot, the final exhausting chase through Grand Central Station) are heart-stopping. Set in the decade when he made his best films, De Palma indulges in a masterclass of cinematic technique, matched only by Pacino. In his snazzy leather coat and trim little beard, he is an enormously charistmatic presence, and hold the attention whenever he is onscreen.

Marvellous.

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