‘Carlito’s Way’ or — Reigning It In?
It’s not often you’d put the words ‘Brian De Palma’ and ‘restraint’ together in the same sentence but that pretty much applies to his 1993 film ‘Carlito’s Way’.
The initial, lazy parallels are with ‘Scarface’ and it could be easy to view Carlito as an older and wiser Tony Montana brought to the screen by a director who’s a little older and wiser too. Except Carlito, even in his violent youth, was nothing like Tony Montana, a character utterly devoid of rationality and driven by pure nilhilism. Instead Carlito is a three dimensional human being and not a raging psychopath, although maybe this is down to the fact the script was written by David Koepp who, especially compared to Oliver Stone, is a proficient but rather pedestrian screen-writer; edgy and dangerous are words you’d ever associate with his work. As a result ‘Carlito’s Way’ has a strong story with sympathetic characters but there’s never that feeling the film could really cut loose and go crazy, something nearly all other De Palma movies thrive on.
Not that that’s a bad thing with ‘Carlito’s Way’s comparative lack of gangster histrionics allowing for a clear and simple story. Indeed, the film feels almost a chamber piece revolving around only a few main characters and eschewing sprawling gang families or complex empires. This is a film about a man who wants out, simple as that and, as a result, De Palma reigns the cinematic pyrotechnics in, keeping the movie simple too.
Of course there are still the elaborate set-pieces with a particularly good one near the start in a pool-hall whilst De Palma seems to be saving his energy for the climatic, extended and down-right brilliant cat-and-mouse sequence at Central Station which easily rivals some of the best stuff he’s ever done on a technical level. By the time all this happens we’ve been won over to Carlito and even though we know he’s following a dream we’re on his side and desperate for him to make it.
‘Carlito’s Way’ is a very good film. It doesn’t contain the shock and awe of ‘Scarface’ or other similar gangster movies but it’s not trying to do that, it’s not lobbing a grenade into the audience’s lap with a maniacal laugh and watching everything explode. It’s about a guy who’s run out of wind and is trying to keep everything in control until he can escape and the movie has that control too. It might make for a less explosive movie but a refreshing benefit is an antagonist in a gangster film who isn’t completely reprehensible. We don’t want to see Carlito self-destruct; we want to see him free.
