| Carlito's Way | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Brian De Palma |
| Screenplay by | David Koepp |
| Based on | Carlito's Way andAfter Hours byEdwin Torres |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Stephen H. Burum |
| Edited by | |
| Music by | Patrick Doyle |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 144 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30 million |
| Box office | $64 million[1] |
Carlito's Way is a 1993 Americancrime drama film directed byBrian De Palma and written byDavid Koepp, based on the novelsCarlito's Way (1975) andAfter Hours (1979) byJudge Edwin Torres. It starsAl Pacino,Sean Penn,Penelope Ann Miller,Luis Guzman,John Leguizamo,Jorge Porcel,Joseph Siravo andViggo Mortensen.
Pacino portrays Carlito Brigante, aNuyorican criminal who vows to go straight and to retire inParadise. However, his criminal past proves difficult to escape, and he is unwillingly dragged into the same activities that got him imprisoned in the first place. The film is based mainly onAfter Hours, but it used the title of the first novel to avoid it being confused withMartin Scorsese's1985 film. This is the second film collaboration with Pacino and De Palma, afterScarface (1983).
Carlito's Way was released on November 12, 1993, byUniversal Pictures. It initially received mixed reviews from critics and lukewarm results at the box office, although general reception to the film has improved in subsequent years. The film has gained a strongcult following, and it is generally considered to be one of De Palma's most enduring films.[2][3] Both Penn and Miller receivedGolden Globe nominations for their performances. Aprequel titledCarlito's Way: Rise to Power, based on the first novel, was releaseddirect-to-video in 2005.
In 1975New York City, after having served five years of a thirty-year prison sentence, career criminal Carlito Brigante is freed on a legal technicality that has been exploited by his close friend and lawyer Dave Kleinfeld. Carlito vows to end his unlawful activities but is persuaded to accompany his young cousin Guajiro to a drug deal at an illegalspeakeasy. Guajiro's suppliers betray and kill him, forcing Carlito to shoot his way out. Carlito takes Guajiro's $30,000 from the botched deal and uses it to buy a stake in anightclub that is owned by a gambling addict named Saso, intending to save $75,000 to retire to theCaribbean.
Carlito declines several offers for a business partnership with a hot-headed young gangster fromthe Bronx named Benny Blanco. Carlito also rekindles his romance with his former girlfriend Gail, a ballet dancer who moonlights as a stripper. Dave develops a love interest with Benny's girlfriend Steffie, a waitress at the club. Benny's frustration with Carlito's rejections comes to a head, and he confronts Carlito at his table. Carlito publicly humiliates Benny, who reacts by manhandling Steffie. Fueled by his now-extensive use ofalcohol andcocaine, Dave brazenly pulls out a gun and threatens to kill Benny, but Carlito intervenes. Despite being personally threatened by Benny, Carlito lets him go unharmed, a decision that alienates him from his friend and bodyguard Pachanga.
Dave, who stole $1 million in a payoff from his client,Mafia boss Anthony "Tony T" Taglialucci, is coerced into providing hisyacht to help Taglialucci break out of theRikers Island prison barge. Dave begs for Carlito's assistance in the prison break, and Carlito reluctantly agrees. That night, Carlito, Dave and Taglialucci's son Frankie sail to a floatingbuoy outside of the barge where Taglialucci is waiting. As they pull Taglialucci aboard, Dave kills him and Frankie, then dumps their bodies in theEast River, claiming that they would have killed him anyway. Knowing that mob retaliation is imminent, Carlito immediately severs his ties with Dave and decides to leave town with Gail. The next day, Dave is hospitalized after a mob hitman stabs him several times.
The police apprehend Carlito and take him to the office of District Attorney Norwalk, where he learns that Dave has already agreed toperjure himself should Carlito be tried again. Despite being threatened with charges of being an accomplice to the Taglialucci murders, Carlito refuses to betray Dave. In the hospital, Carlito visits Dave, who confesses to selling him out. Having noticed a suspicious man dressed in a police uniform waiting in the lobby, Carlito secretly unloads Dave's revolver and leaves. The man is Taglialucci's other son Vinnie seeking vengeance for his brother and father. After sending away the officer who is guarding Dave, Vinnie enters Dave's room and shoots him dead.
Carlito buys train tickets toMiami for himself and Gail, now pregnant with their child. When he visits his club to get the stashed money, he is met by agroup of East Harlem Italian gangsters led by Vinnie. The Italians plan to kill Carlito, but he manages to slip out through a secret exit. The Italians pursue him through the city's subway system and intoGrand Central Terminal, where they engage in a gunfight.
Carlito kills all of his pursuers except Vinnie, whom the police shoot and kill. As Carlito runs to catch the train where Gail and Pachanga are waiting for him, Benny ambushes him and fatally shoots him several times with asilenced gun. Pachanga admits to Carlito that he is now working for Benny, but the latter shoots him as well. Carlito hands a tearful Gail the money and tells her to escape with their unborn child and start a new life. As he dies, Carlito stares at a billboard with a Caribbean beach and a picture of a woman. The billboard comes to life in his mind, and the woman, now Gail, starts dancing.
Pacino first heard about the character Carlito Brigante in aYMCA gym in New York City in 1973. Pacino was doing physical training for his movieSerpico when he metNew York State Supreme Court JudgeEdwin Torres, the author writing the novelsCarlito's Way andAfter Hours. When the novels were completed, Pacino read them and liked them, especially the character of Carlito.[6]
Inspiration for the novels came from Torres's background: the East Harlembarrio where he was born and its atmosphere ofgangs,drugs andpoverty.[12] In 1989, Pacino faced a $6 million lawsuit fromfilm producerElliott Kastner, who claimed that Pacino had reneged on an agreement to star in his version of a Carlito movie withMarlon Brando as criminal lawyer David Kleinfeld. The suit was dropped, and the project was abandoned.[6]
Pacino went to producerMartin Bregman with the intention of getting a Carlito Brigante film made, and showed him an early draft of a screenplay.[13] Bregman rejected the screenplay, but both Bregman and Pacino agreed that the character of Brigante would provide a suitable showcase for Pacino's talents.[13] Bregman approached screenwriter David Koepp, who had just finished writing the script for Bregman's forthcoming filmThe Shadow, and asked him to write the script forCarlito's Way.[4] It was decided that the screenplay would be based on the second novelAfter Hours. At that stage in his life, Carlito would be closer to Pacino's age.[5] Although based primarily on the second novel, the titleCarlito's Way remained,[5] mainly due to the existence ofMartin Scorsese's 1985 filmAfter Hours. Bregman worked closely with Koepp for two years to develop theshooting script forCarlito's Way.[4]
Koepp wrestled with thevoice-over throughout the writing process. Initially, the voice-over was to take place in the hospital, but De Palma suggested the train station platform.[11] The hospital scenes were rewritten 25 to 30 times because the actors had trouble with the sequence, with Pacino thinking that Carlito would not even go to the hospital. With one final rewrite, Koepp managed to make the scene work to Pacino's satisfaction. Kleinfeld does not die in the novels, but De Palma has a strong sense of justice and retribution — he could not stand to see Carlito killed and let Kleinfeld live.[11]
At one point,The Long Good Friday directorJohn Mackenzie was linked to the film. WhenCarlito's Way and its sequelAfter Hours wereoptioned, Martin Bregman hadAbel Ferrara in mind to direct. When Bregman and Ferrara parted ways, De Palma was recruited. Bregman explained that this decision was not about "getting the old team back together," but rather making use of the best talent available.[6] De Palma reluctantly read the script, but whenSpanish-speaking characters became evident, he feared that it would beScarface again.[8] De Palma said that he did not want to make another Spanish-speakinggangster film.[6]
When De Palma finally read it all the way through, he realized that the script was not what he thought it was. De Palma liked the script, and envisioned it as afilm noir.[4] Bregman supervised casting throughout the various stages ofpre-production, and carefully selected the creative team who would make the film a reality. This includedproduction designer Richard Sylbert,film editorBill Pankow,costume designer Aude Bronson-Howard anddirector of photography Stephen Burum.[14]
Filming initially began on March 22, 1993, although the first scheduled shoot, theGrand Central Station climax, had to be changed when Pacino arrived on crutches. Instead, the tension-buildingpool hall sequence, where Carlito accompanies his young cousin Guajiro on an ill-fated drug deal, started the production.[7] De Palma felt that because the film was heavily character-based and featured little action, the early pool sequence had to be elaborate. A huge amount of time was spent setting up and filming it.[8] After viewing a cut of the pool hall sequence,studio executives had a note passed to the crew stating that they felt the scene was too long. De Palma spent more time adding to the sequence, and made it work with the help of editor Bill Pankow.[11]
Apart from the poster sequence, which was shot inFlorida, the entire movie was filmed on location inNew York. De Palma roamedManhattan searching for suitable locations. A tenement on 115th Street became the site of Carlito's homecoming: the barrio scene. The courtroom scene, in which Carlito thanks the prosecutor, was shot in Judge Torres's workplace, the State Supreme Court Building at60 Centre Street.[7] The club Paradise was modeled on aWest Sidebrownstone, but that was considered too cramped for filming. A multi-levelbistro club designed by De Palma took shape at theKaufman Astoria Studios inLong Island City, in the style of a 1970sart deco discotheque.[15]
Tony Taglialucci's escape fromRikers Island, set in a river at night, was considered impossible to shoot on location. Instead, the production used aBrooklyn shipyard where Kleinfeld's boat was lowered into an empty lock into which river water was pumped. Smoke machines and towers of space lights were installed.
For the climactic finale, De Palma staged a chase from the platform of theHarlem-125th Street station to the escalators of Grand Central Terminal. For the shoot, trains were re-routed and timed for Pacino and his pursuers to dart from car to hurtling car.[15] The length of theescalator scene during the climactic gunfight at Grand Central Station caused a headache for editor Pankow. He had to piece together the sequences so that the audience would be so tied up in the action that they would not think about how long the escalator was running.[16]
Carlito's Waywrapped production on July 20, 1993, and was released on November 3, 1993.[17] Opening weekendbox office ticket sales totaled over $9 million. At the end of its theatrical run, the film had grossed more than $37 million in the United States and Canada, and $27 million overseas, for a total of $64 million.[1]
Critical response to the theatrical release was somewhat lukewarm. The film was criticized for retreading old ground,[18] mainly in regard to De Palma's earlier filmsScarface andThe Untouchables.[19][20]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times stated in his review that the film was one of De Palma's finest, with some of the bestset pieces he had done.[20] On the syndicatedSiskel & Ebert television show, Ebert gave the film a thumbs up, whileGene Siskel of theChicago Tribune gave it a thumbs down.[21]
Peter Travers ofRolling Stone criticized the film for Pacino's "Rican" accent that slips into his "Southern drawl fromScent of a Woman," De Palma's "erratic pacing and derivative shootouts," and wondered "what might have been ifCarlito's Way had forged new ground and not gone down smokin' in the shadow ofScarface."[21]
Owen Gleiberman ofEntertainment Weekly described the film as "a competent and solidly unsurprising urban-underworld thriller," and as "okay entertainment," but went on to say that the plot would have worked better "as a lean-and-meanMiami Vice episode."[22]
Patrick Doyle was praised for hisfilm score, which was described as "elegiac" and "hauntingly beautiful," and was said to display Doyle as "one of the major talents of modern film scoring."[23]
Bregman was surprised by some of the negative reviews, but stated that some of the same reviewers had since "retracted" their views in further discussions of the film.[13] A few weeks before the film's premiere, De Palma told the crew not to get their hopes up about the film's reception. He correctly predicted that Pacino, having just won an Oscar, would be criticized; Koepp, having just doneJurassic Park, would "suck"; Penn would be "brilliant" because he had not done anything for a while; and De Palma, having not been forgiven forThe Bonfire of the Vanities, would not quite be embraced.[11]
The film has an approval rating of 85% onRotten Tomatoes, based on 52 reviews, with aweighted average of 7.20/10. The site's consensus states: "Carlito's Way reunites De Palma and Pacino for a more wistful take on the crime epic, delivering a stylish thriller with a beating heart beneath its pyrotechnic performances and set pieces."[24]
Sean Penn and Penelope Ann Miller both receivedGolden Globe nominations for their respective roles as Kleinfeld and Gail.[25] More recent appreciation of the film was highlighted when the French publicationCahiers du Cinéma named it as one of the three best films of the 1990s, along withThe Bridges of Madison County andGoodbye South, Goodbye.[18][26]
| Award | Category | Subject | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| CFCA Award | Best Supporting Actor | Sean Penn | Nominated |
| David di Donatello Awards | Best Foreign Actor | Al Pacino | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture | Sean Penn | Nominated |
| Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Penelope Ann Miller | Nominated | |
| Nastro d'Argento | Best Male Dubbing | Giancarlo Giannini(for dubbing Al Pacino in the Italian version) | Won |
Patrick Doyle composed the original score, while musical supervisorJellybean Benitez supplemented thesoundtrack with elements ofsalsa,merengue and other authentic styles.[14]
| Carlito's Way: Original Motion Picture Score | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Film score by Patrick Doyle | |
| Released | 1993 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Label | Varese Sarabande |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [27] |
| Music Week | [28] |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Carlito's Way" | 05:17 |
| 2. | "Carlito and Gail" | 04:05 |
| 3. | "The Cafe" | 01:59 |
| 4. | "Laline" | 02:36 |
| 5. | "You're Over, Man" | 02:09 |
| 6. | "Where's My Cheesecake?" | 02:12 |
| 7. | "The Buoy" | 04:04 |
| 8. | "The Elevator" | 01:45 |
| 9. | "There's an Angle Here" | 02:18 |
| 10. | "Grand Central" | 10:08 |
| 11. | "Remember Me" | 04:52 |
| Carlito's Way: Music From The Motion Picture | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Various Artists | |
| Released | November 9, 1993 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Label | Sony |
| No. | Title | Artist | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "I Love Music" | Rozalla | 4:52 |
| 2. | "Rock the Boat" | The Hues Corporation | 3:09 |
| 3. | "That's the Way (I Like It)" | KC and the Sunshine Band | 3:06 |
| 4. | "Rock Your Baby" | Ed Terry | 3:44 |
| 5. | "Parece Mentira" | Marc Anthony | 5:26 |
| 6. | "Back Stabbers" | The O'Jays | 3:09 |
| 7. | "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" | MFSB | 3:38 |
| 8. | "Got to Be Real" | Cheryl Lynn | 5:07 |
| 9. | "Lady Marmalade" | Labelle | 3:57 |
| 10. | "Pillow Talk" | Sinoa | 3:49 |
| 11. | "El Watusi" | Ray Barretto | 2:40 |
| 12. | "Oye Como Va" | Santana | 4:17 |
| 13. | "You Are So Beautiful" | Billy Preston | 4:50 |
The film was released onVHS andLaserDisc infullscreen andwidescreen versions.[24] For the LaserDisc version, this would be aTHX certified release.[29] It was eventually released onDVD in 2004,[30] with an Ultimate Edition in 2005.[31] The Ultimate Edition DVD includes deleted scenes, an interview with De Palma, a "making-of" documentary, and more.[32] In 2007, anHD DVD version was released that features the same bonus material as the Ultimate Edition.[33] The film was released onBlu-ray on May 18, 2010.[34]
A prequel based onEdwin Torres's first novel was releaseddirect-to-video in 2005, with the titleCarlito's Way: Rise to Power. Critically panned, the film nevertheless received Torres's blessing as an accurate adaptation of the first novel.[35]
