Carlito's Way, 1993

After watching The Godfather trilogy (which I loved) and then Scarface (which I disliked) I was fully expecting the diminishing returns to continue in the Pacino-Ganster-Film genre. Surprisingly, this was actually a good film, mostly because the ending has some succesful suspense and imaginative shooting (which Scarface sorely lacks). What keeps the film from being 5 stars is, surprisingly, Pacino's performance. Most everyone seems to be ranting about how good it is, but frankly, it's constantly either over-the-top or a misplaced mello--his tone never seems to quite fit the plot points. And the voice-over narration, rather than being 'poetic' as has been suggested, is actually quite bad. It adds little characterization or exposition and is so cliche-laden that it made me chuckle. But I can get past Pacino's performance (and his choice to keep making the same movie from different perspectives over the course of 3 decades) and give the movie a good recommendation.

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