Movie · 1993 · Crime, Drama, Thriller · 2h 24m · R · English
Curator score: 8.2/10 (435.3K ratings)
He's got a good future if he can live past next week.
Overview
Free after years in prison, Carlito Brigante intends to give up his criminal ways, but it's not long before the ex-con is sucked back into the New York City underworld.
Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, John Leguizamo, Ingrid Rogers, Luis Guzmán, James Rebhorn, Joseph Siravo, Viggo Mortensen, Richard Foronjy, Jorge Porcel, Frank Minucci, Adrian Pasdar, John Ortiz, Ángel Salazar, Al Israel, Rick Aviles, Jaime Sánchez, Edmonte Salvato, Paul Mazursky
Where to watch
Starz, Philo
Curator Review
Verdict
A stylish, mournful gangster drama with De Palma’s signature bravura set pieces and one of Pacino’s most magnetic late-era performances. It’s less about crime mechanics than about a man trying, and failing, to outrun his past.
Best for
fans of operatic crime films
viewers who like charismatic antiheroes
people drawn to tense chase sequences and big visual flourishes
fans of 1990s studio gangster dramas
Skip if
you want a lean, realistic crime thriller
you dislike heightened melodrama and flashy direction
you’re looking for a purely action-driven mob movie
you’re sensitive to dated ethnic caricature or macho posturing
Overview
Brian De Palma turns a familiar rise-and-fall gangster premise into something elegiac and feverish. Carlito is not chasing power so much as a second chance, and the film’s real tension comes from watching the past close in on him anyway.
Worth noting
Al Pacino gives the role a weary, romantic gravity, while Sean Penn is gloriously grotesque as the self-destructive lawyer who drags the story toward chaos. De Palma stages the movie with swooping confidence, building toward a finale that is both technically dazzling and emotionally fatalistic.
Bottom line
What lingers is the mood: a world of bad decisions, doomed loyalty, and the fantasy that one clean exit might still be possible. It’s a gangster film with a bruised heart, and that melancholy gives the spectacle its bite.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Patrick Willems (4★) · 2233 likes
De Palma's a legend for only casting Sean Penn as the most unlikable scumbags
matt lynch (4★) · 1924 likes
Once it was "The World is Yours", now it's "Escape to Paradise". Shit ain't what it used to be.
#1 gizmo fan (4★) · 1866 likes
would do literally anything to have al pacino break down my door just to have sex with me
SilentDawn (5★) · 1374 likes
96
"Adiós, counselor."
Brian De Palma sets the stage and Al Pacino just walks off, disco blaring. The two are usually only as electrifying as their material, and here, with a sharp, swooning machismo weepie, they both shine as bright as can be. De Palma's set-pieces, whether operatic (the final nightclub/train station chase) or intimate (the playful seduction between Carlito and Gail behind the apartment door) are perfect, and Pacino is given plenty of space to create. A key moment… more
Chris Evangelista (4★) · 1280 likes
“Maybe he’ll make it this time,” I think every time I watch this