Vintage

If we gave a shit about them that is.  Carlito’s Way is a film about such a person – a flawed man that was a product of the mean streets in New York.  A man who was smart enough to survive and realize he was lucky to have done so.  A man who made a decision to scoot out of that gangster life and start anew, somewhere else, but ultimately, was tethered to tightly to the gangster life, which was all he knew. 

The film opens with Carlito gaining his freedom on a technicality brought out by his pissball conniving lawyer, who is so sleazy, he may have been responsible for starting the whole genre of lawyer jokes.  And this is credit the man who played the lawyer, Sean Penn no doubt.  More on him later. 

You have to feel bad for a guy like Carlito Brigante, a wannabe reformed barrio hustler and dealer, played to a tee by Al Pacino.  He is a man that is wizened from some extended time in the clink, to the tune of 5-years.  He is rescued, or sprung if you choose to look at it that way, by a really sleaze bag lawyer acted out with true virtuosity by Sean Penn, a guy who might be cool, if he weren’t such an asshole in real life.  And how do I know that about him? 

Do I know him personally?  No.

But I know him through the tabloids and his saving New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and that is all I need to know about him.  Then there was the time he lambasted Chris Rock at the Oscar’s for making fun of Jude Law, another pretty boy actor who is not cool at all. 

To his credit, Penn is a great actor.  Not a cool one, but a great one.  Back to Pacino.  He is the real McCoy.  Not that cool, but there is just something very interesting about him playing a Puerto Rican with nary a Hispanic accent at all.  But, heck, he doesn't’t have to have a damn accent if he doesn't’t want to, he is Al Pacino and the man comes with his own graveling accent. 

I think Pacino as an actor in his later years has found a true niche in acting freaking exasperated.  Heck, the man never slept in Insomnia. Hopefully that is really not the case because I would like for him to add a few more mafia films to his cannon before he calls it quit, and to make amends for Godfather III.  But that aside, Carlito’s Way is a great film and not just because of the roles played by Penn and Pacino.

Brian DePalma gets it right with this flick, more nuanced than your typical gangster film.  It is elevated because it is about the inner struggle of Carlito, who having been giving a second lease on life, wants to be reformed, wants to lead a normal life and go rent Ford  Pintos to tourists in paradise, as his Klienfeld laughed at his dream.

The best parts of Carlito’s Way come toward the end, when Klienfeld is put into a no win situation, which, like most assholes, he created.  Apparently, he was to waylay a million in cash from an incarcerated Mafioso to the man’s goon gangsta son.  Somehow the money disappeared. It would follow he seemed to think that the Mafioso, who was sick with a terminal movie cough, would die and the money would not be missed. The money never made it into the hands of the fat Mafioso son. The mafioso never died either.

In fact, he seems to figure it all out.

The Mafia guy then springs this on Klienfeld  Since he has a million dollar credit, he commands Klienfeld to get his boat and pick him up at the buoy near Riker’s Island.  If not, “The lime pit is already dug...”  The man sends his son with him to help rescue him. 

The interesting point about this development is that our wannabe good guy Carlito Brigante is asked by Klienfeld to come along and help.  After all, he does owe Klienfeld for getting him out of jail. 

Against the better judgment of his sounding board, Gail (Penelope Miller) he decides to help him out.  This was a mistake.  You just knew he was going to get pulled into something regrettable and that he did. 

It must be mentioned a this point that Penelope’s Millers’ role was a little too reminiscence of Daryl Hannah in The Pope of Greenwich Village, a super freaking cool movie, even better than this one  She seemed to just nag him to no end, but he did love her and he does convince her to buy into his dream of leaving the barrio for the greener pastures of the car rental business. 

But back to the business at hand. 

Carlito is past the point of no return when on the boat Klienfeld bops the floating mafia chief over the bald head with a crow bar, right after he waxed the guy’s son.  How long before the Italians figure out who did this and they figure that out, how long before they would guess Carlito might have been on that boat with him?

This is what Carlito is presented by the Feds.  I liked that he didn't turn states, and stuck to his street honor code, which at one point Klienfeld had told him had gotten him nowhere. 

He basically still wanted his money and wanted to get out.  However, like one of eight million stories in a naked city, the streets reached back and took him before he could escape.  What a shame.  He would have made the coolest car rental manager in the history of paradise.

Matthew J. DeReno is a writer living in Pittsburgh.