ISBN: 1898866791
Review:
I might as well say it at the beginning of this review as at the end. This film is another tour de force by Pacino. He is amazing. Pacino plays Carlito Brigante, a Puerto-Rican American who has risen in the ghetto through an aptitude for killing. When the movie begins he is in court giving a speech about how five years in prison has reformed him. We know immediately the movie is going to be about whether he succeeds in leaving the past behind or not. He owes a debt of gratitude to his lawyer, who found the loopholes that freed him. Sean Penn is also excellent in his portrayal of the lawyer as he gradually turns into the sort of person he defends. Carlito finds a former lover and struggles to be who she and he want him to be. Penelope Anne Miller, too, does a great job in her role, avoiding the stereotype of the gangster’s moll and projecting a conflicted vulnerability. A great cast and a great movie which hooked me in immediately and kept me to the end. The director tries to enlist our sympathies for Carlito. I’m not into enjoying murder and Carlito kills by reflex without thinking first. In this movie he balks at killing several times, but for practical reasons, having time to calculate the risks of payback. Yes, I felt some sympathy for Carlito, but my sympathy lay with this struggle to give the lie to the improbability of him ever achieving his dream of a peaceful life without any killing in it. Let’s be real and put this movie with the other godfather and gangster movies, in a basket of stuff that shows us how we should never live. If we are clear about this then our kids will watch them and never think it would be cool to kill their classmates.