Short Take: Carlito's Way

The filmmaker Brian De Palma has done brilliant work in many modes: cultural satire, postmodern suspense thrillers, epic-scale social realism. But more than anything he is a showman. The finest outing for that side of him is perhaps the romantic crime drama Carlito's Way. The setting is mid-1970s New York City. Al Pacino stars as Carlito Brigante, a former Spanish Harlem druglord who is released from prison when his conviction is thrown out. Now middle-aged, he wants nothing more to do with the criminal life. He has two goals: to raise enough money to buy into a Bahamas rental-car partnership, and to rekindle his romance with the dancer (Penelope Ann Miller) he was involved with before his imprisonment. But he cannot put his past behind him. While he was away, he developed a near legendary reputation among the Spanish Harlem underworld. The prosecutor (James Rebhorn) who put him in jail is determined to send him back. Various associates, including his corrupt lawyer (Sean Penn), keep trying to involve him in their criminal schemes. Most gratingly, he has to contend with a rising mobster (John Leguizamo) who's the mirror image of himself as a young man. De Palma presents much of the material in one grandly executed set piece after another. He's particularly enamored with capturing the most elaborately staged action in extended long takes. One is often staring at the screen in astonishment at his flamboyant assurance. The other kinds of scenes--the actors' dialogues; the suspensefully edited drug deal gone bad in the first act; the comic, then swooning "Where's my cheesecake?" love scene--all are handled terrifically well. The most impressive sequence is a chase that begins at a Spanish Harlem nightclub, continues through the New York City subway, and ends in Grand Central Station. The moments before the chase's climax, presented in a breathtakingly sustained moving-camera single take around the Grand Central escalator, may be the most spectacular piece of filmmaking of De Palma's career. But for all the bravura, he keeps the story foremost in a viewer's mind. The film is so powerfully immersive that even though one is told the ending early on, the scene still packs a wallop when it comes. The entire cast--Pacino, Penn, Miller, Leguizamo, Rebhorn, Luis Guzmán, Viggo Mortensen, the various bit players--is superb. The support artisans all do first-rate work. They include production designer Richard Sylbert, cinematographer Stephen H. Burum, editor Bill Pankow, and composer Patrick Doyle. The source material is a pair of novels, Carlito's Way and After Hours, by New York City judge Edwin Torres. David Koepp has sole credit for the script, although there was substantial input from De Palma, Pacino, Torres, Luis Guzmán, and producer Martin Bregman.