Biggus
Posts: 7603
Joined: 2/10/2005
From: Not Local
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Something changed with Pulp Fiction. For the better in a lot of respects. Cliched genres were revitalised, bloated blockbusters were burst and stagnant film-maker were re-energised. An entire generation's backside was well and truly kicked. But at what cost? In short: 'The Good Old Fashioned Gangster Movie TM'.
Since the dawn of cinema, film-makers have seduced us with the perils and pitfalls of the wrong side of the tracks. Films such as Wellman's The Public Enemy (1931), Hawks' Scarface (1932), Coppola's The Godfather (1972), De Palma's Scarface (1983) and Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990) have seduced and, if executed correctly, repulsed movie-goers for decades into indulging their fantasies of power (the latter arguably the most effectively so). Yet since the emergence of Mr Tarantino's 1994 pop culture-laden masterpiece, despite the aforementioned plus points, sadly many film-makers who followed have twisted his efforts into a slew of trashy, misdirected bore-fests (mentioning no Smokin' Ac... er... sorry I mean names) which have largely populated the mainstream ever since with their self-referential tosh and epileptic editing.
Just one small year before this cultural shift occurred, 70s movie brat Brian De Palma decided to grace us with one final Good Old Fashioned Gangster Movie - Carlito's Way. Recruiting Al Pacino as the titular Puerto Rican desperate to go straight, Carlito's Way is the kind of thoughtful, romantic and absorbing crime flick that has sadly been absent from our cinema screens in recent years and harks back to a time when cinema-goers genuinely rooted for people you know should really get their comeuppance sooner rather than later.
The story of Carlito's Way is a simple one; Hispanic former dope-peddler Carlito Brigante, freshly released from prison after serving only 5 years of an expected 30 year sentence, attempts to go straight. The film itself plays out very much in the form of a tragedy with Brigante himself almost always dressed in black. All of his attempts at leading an honourable return to society are skewed at every turn, not only by the hoodlums of his previous life but also by his own, as his lawyer so astutely puts it, "self-righteous code of the god-damn street". He wants to pull away but he can't. He never will. Another central theme of the film is change. "What a man gotta come to when he loses 5 years". Each character from his past fills the story a sense of unease as they enter the frame. Be it shifts in name, personality or allegiance, everyone Brigante crosses is differerent from what he remembers. Some immediately apparent, some less so. The one exception being "the one face that didn't change. One face that still knows you... looks at the same way it always did", namely his former girlfriend Gail who is there as Carlito's beacon of hope, the one good thing in his life to guide him out of 'the street'.
In amongst this journey we have the revelatory turn from Sean Penn as Brigante's slimy, coke-addled lawyer Dave Kleinfeld, undoubtedly the performance which turned the Artist Formerly Known As Spicoli into the method-munching, Oscar-guzzler we know today. Kleinfeld is the perfect thorn in Carlito's well-meaning side, constantly pulling him in the direction we all hope he'll steer clear of.
On revisiting this film it really did strike me that it's the last of its kind. The tragic, romantic gangster movie which makes you root for its hero but never enough to be unsympathetic when circumstances go awry. The type of film that indulges your deepest desires but never lets you forget what a huge mistake you'd be making. A cinematic moral compass of a bygone era that meant you never actually needed to see the shrink. So to Carlito's Way and all who preceded it I will leave you with the words of the protagonist concerned:
"Adios counsellor, you were good..."
< Message edited by Biggus -- 4/11/2011 12:06:57 AM >
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"They offered me a hundred grand. You wanna know something? When I found out I'd get my hands on you, I said I'd do it for nothing."
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