Synopsis
A Puerto-Rican ex-con, just released from prison, pledges to stay away from drugs and violence despite the pressure around him, and lead a better life outside NYC.
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Cast
- Al PacinoCarlito Brigante
- Sean PennDavid Kleinfeld
- Penelope Ann MillerGail
- John LeguizamoBenny Blanco
- Ingrid RogersSteffie
- Luis GuzmánPachanga
- James RebhornNorwalk
- Joseph SiravoVincent Taglialucci
- Viggo MortensenLalin
- Richard ForonjyPete Amadesso
Recommendations
- 100
Slant Magazine
Though the story in Carlito’s Way is treated in a fatalistic sense, the moment-to-moment, frame-to-frame experience is anything but rigid and stodgy from over-determination. It sings, dances, punches, slinks, embeds. It moves like the luxurious tracking shots that punctuate the film. - 100
Empire
Utterly compelling - Sean Penn is a powerhouse in support - and with a railway station set - piece in which De Palma actually betters what was his previously Untouchable effort. - 90
The New Yorker
Penn, with curled hair and wire-rims, makes a brilliant, slippery high-end shyster; his modulated hysteria is amazing. So is Brian De Palma’s direction. Few films actually made in the disco era can match the kinetic allure of this 1993 production, which has a bluesy undertow all its own. - 88
Chicago Sun-Times
The acting here, by Sean Penn, is a virtuoso tour de force - one of those performances that takes on a life of its own. - 78
Austin Chronicle
With a concluding chase/shoot-out episode that might even make Hitchcock jealous, Carlito's Way is a dandy piece of entertainment. If the story needs a bit more depth and reason, who really cares? There's hardly time to notice. - 75
Entertainment Weekly
Carlito’s Way is perfectly okay entertainment, yet this 2-hour-and-21-minute movie never convinced me it wouldn’t have been every bit as good (if not better) as a lean and mean Miami Vice episode. - 50
Washington Post
Below the attention-getting surface, there's no sense of humanity underneath. The day De Palma pulls away the masks from his characters, they'll start to breathe -- and so will his films. - 50
ReelViews
Carlito's Way probably should have been a taut thriller, but choices by DePalma in both presentation and editing have hamstrung it.
