Top 100 Movies Of The 1990s: #36 Carlito's Way
Box Office: $36.9 Million
Oscar Nominations: None
Oscar Wins: None
MovieRankings.Net: 87/100
Available To Stream: Vix, Apple TV ($4)
(I am going to talk spoilers about this movie. I know it's a 30 year old movie but maybe some people haven't seen it. You've been warned.)
This is the last good yet true Brian De Palma movie. To be fair, he did also direct the first Mission: Impossible movie (#82) but that is more of a Tom Cruise movie than a De Palma one. This is everything you hoped you'd get from De Palma after seeing his potential early on in his career. It's probably hard to understand now but in the 1970's, he was in the same class of directors as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. If you said in 1982 that De Palma was your favorite of that group, people wouldn't have thought that was an odd thing to say.
Advertisement
I'm not sure exactly what happened. The 80's were a bizarrely uneven decade for him with great movies like Blow Out and The Untouchables. However, he also directed Wise Guys with Joe Piscopo and Casualties Of War with Michael J. Fox playing a soldier in Vietnam. The good movies became fewer and farther between even into the 1990's. Carlito's Way is the exception.
This was Sean Penn's first movie in three years and he was nearly unrecognizable. His performance of a lawyer gone bad as David Kleinfeld is so interesting, it could have been its own movie. He's so good that you forget you are watching Penn. Compare this to his character in Mystic River. In Carlito's Way, he has none of that same confidence. He is trying to so hard to fit in. He's a booksmart guy but desperately wants to be a gangster. In Mystic River, he's playing someone who naturally fits in but none of the same intelligence that he has playing Kleinfeld.
We get Pacino in a role he is naturally so good in. It's just a treat getting a gangster movie with Al Pacino. It's not even the last Pacino gangster movie on this list (and I'm not talking about The Godfather III). I'm sure some younger audiences may have issues with Pacino playing a Puerto Rican but I think that's a bad argument. He's great here and he was great as a Cuban in Scarface. You think Viggo Mortenson playing someone named Lalin Miasso is bad casting? That I can agree with because it was a ridiculous use of a great actor. But that only proves how great Pacino is here.
No one likes using train stations as climatic scenes more than Brian De Palma. That's OK though because no one would be better. The ending of The Untouchables is stunning to watch and thrilling. I think the Carlito's Way ending might be better. The last 30 minutes from the night club to the subway to Grand Central Station is about as exciting as any gangster movie ever. The shot of Pacino on the escalator shooting mafiosos is wild. It's a brilliantly paced sequence that only De Palma could do.
Advertisement
As far as nitpicks, I have a couple. The dialogue could be tightened up a little but that's admittedly a small thing. This was written by David Koepp who had one of the greatest years ever for any screenwriter. He also wrote Jurassic Park which came out that summer. Having characters like Benny Blanco (from the Bronx) a little less cartoony would have gone a long way.
The other problem I have is I wish they didn't show us Carlito getting shot at the beginning of the movie. It took away what would have been more of a surprise at the end. I think him dying at the end would have packed much more of an emotional wallop if I didn't know what was going to happen 140 minutes earlier.
We are now at the part of the list where the movies are pretty fantastic so take at these criticisms as pretty light. This is a wildly underrated mob movie with a director having one last fantastic movie in him and a cast led by two of the greatest actors of my lifetime. Paradise, indeed.
36. Carlito's Way
37. Seven
38. L.A. Confidential
39. Speed
40. Gattaca
41. Misery
42. Tombstone
43. Ransom
44. Wayne's World
45. The Insider
46. Back To The Future Part III
47. A Bronx Tale
48. The People Vs. Larry Flynt
49. Eyes Wide Shut
50. The Sandlot
51. Happy Gilmore
52. Contact
53. The Green Mile
54. Man On The Moon
55. Boyz N The Hood
56. Grosse Pointe Blank
57. Independence Day
58. The Rainmaker
59. Go
60. The Firm
61. Magnolia
62. The Talented Mr. Ripley
63. Tommy Boy
64. The Usual Suspects
65. In The Line Of Fire
66. My Cousin Vinny
67. Awakenings
68. JFK
69. Toy Story
70. Home Alone
71. Jerry Maguire
72. Titanic
73. Billy Madison
74. Apollo 13
75. Braveheart
76. Edward Scissorhands
77. Cape Fear
78. The River Wild
79. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
80. 12 Monkeys
81. Stir Of Echoes
82. Mission: Impossible
83. Total Recall
84. Quiz Show
85. For Love Of The Game
86. Being John Malkovich
87. Men In Black
88. Scream
89. Alive
90. Three Kings
91. Glengarry Glen Ross
92. Die Hard With A Vengeance
93. The Blair Witch Project
94. Twister
95. Dirty Work
96. Election
97. Tremors
98. Any Given Sunday
99. The Wedding Singer
100. Clerks