Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.5

Carlito's Way 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 24, 2023

Arrow is revisiting Carlito's Way with another handsomely packaged release that offers a good deal of on disc bonus content and additional swag. Over a decade ago (!) I reviewed Universal's first 1080 Blu-ray release of the film, and for convenience sake, parts of that review are reprinted here, along with new technical analyses and lists of supplements. Those interested may also want to check out Martin Liebman's Carlito's Way 4K Blu-ray review of Universal's 4K release from a couple of years ago.

There’s a fine line between crafting an hommage and outright ripping someone off. Probably no director has suffered the slings and arrows of both categories than Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock was so distinctive in both technique and subject matter that whole generations of directors have come along to mimic his style and narrative proclivities. Sometimes they’ve just outright aped him, as in Gus Van Sant’s intellectually interesting but artistically hollow remake of Psycho, a film that literally copied (more or less, with a couple of notable exceptions) every shot, angle and supposed nuance of Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece. All that was missing was the terror and subtext which Hitchcock alone seemed to be able to effortlessly bring to not just this particular film, but all of his great achievements. Sometimes the copying has been a little more subtle, as in the case of Brian De Palma, who visited the often twisted psychological landscape of Hitchcock in several films (notably Obsession, Body Double and, perhaps, Dressed to Kill), while at least touching tangentially on several major themes of the Master of Suspense in other films like Carrie and Sisters. De Palma has in fact made no secret of his love of not just Hitchcock, but a whole gallery of iconic filmmakers, often quoting their set pieces outright or indicating his sources without much obfuscation. You might get Eisenstein in The Untouchables or Antonioni in Blow Out. And so one is left to wonder if a director can actually rip himself off when he’s spent so much of his career unabashedly imitating other directors’ set pieces and overall styles. Carlito’s Way is in many ways a retread of De Palma’s previous effort with Pacino, Scarface (itself a remake of sorts, of course), covering the same gangster ethos as that other film, but with a perhaps grittier psychological subtext made especially visceral as a result of the flashback technique of the narrative.

Carlito’s Way was made in 1993, a sort of crossroads for De Palma. After a number of notable successes, he had hit a rough patch with flops like Bonfires of the Vanities and Raising Cain. Ten years after his version of Scarface De Palma returned to Pacino playing a mobster, albeit one desperately trying to go straight and extricate himself from his life of crime. Carlito’s Way was based on two exciting novels by an actual Judge, Edwin Torres, the eponymous novel and its followup After Hours, which actually provided the bulk of the plot for David Koepp’s screenplay. The filmmakers opted for the Carlito’s Way title to avoid confusion with Martin Scorsese’s scabrous black comedy from 1985 starring Griffin Dunne as a hapless word processor caught in a Kafkaesque series of mishaps.

This is a film filled to the brim with virtuoso performances. While some may accuse Pacino (perhaps rightfully so) of rehashing Tony Montana in a sort of “kinder, gentler” mode, the actor brings a depth of feeling and growing remorse to his Carlito Brigante that really sets this character totally apart from Montana’s take no prisoners approach. Penelope Ann Miller is a lovely presence as love interest Gail, a woman seeking to help show Carlito a way out of his former life. John Leguizamo, Luis Guzman and Viggo Mortensen are also on hand in supporting roles as cohorts (and in one case a betrayer) of Carlito, each of them bringing a lot of snap and presence to their performances. But the film quite simply belongs to Sean Penn in an incredible, nearly unrecognizable turn as Carlito’s attorney and supposed best friend David Kleinfeld. Penn, with the front of his head shaved to mimic a receding hairline, and the rest of his hair dyed red and permed to be curly, inhabits the sleazy, duplicitous role completely, making Kleinfeld the ambiguous center of a story filled with moral decrepitude and despondency. It is one of the greatest performances of an actor who has repeatedly defied expectations with a series of radically different roles.

The film plays out as a dialectic between Carlito’s dreams of escape (symbolized by a neon sign showing people relaxing on a Caribbean beach) and the relentless forces of his former lifestyle which repeatedly suck him back into the world of gangsters and crime. As inexorable as gravity, those forces pull Carlito down into a vicious series of events culminating in several violent deaths, ultimately leading to Carlito’s realization that several people in his own inner circle have been both figuratively and literally gunning for him. Since the film is told in flashback, there’s really no mystery to how this tragic story is going to unfold, but De Palma’s sure footed staging of several virtuoso set pieces keeps the audience guessing in terms of several subplots and character motivations.

De Palma was soon to prove his mettle once again with meticulously staged action sequences in Mission: Impossible, but the fact is the director has always had a more or less inerrant eye for set pieces from his earliest successes from the 1970’s. Carlito’s Way shows De Palma stretching his directorial muscles with several excitingly long takes, often with complex tracking or crane shots, none of which are overtly showy enough to draw the viewer out of the story, but which, upon reflection, show De Palma trying to craft a visceral style for himself that perhaps finally breaks free of any previous directorial influences.

Carlito’s Way didn’t quite achieve critical mass on its initial release, and only in the subsequent almost two decades since its premiere has achieved a sort of cult status, newly appreciated as one of De Palma’s most interesting character studies. De Palma has always had a superb touch with actors, and aside from the expert framing he employs throughout this film, the performances may indeed be the lasting legacy of Carlito’s Way. This is a film full of shifting allegiances and motivations, and De Palma and Koepp keep the myriad character impulses clear and precise. Luckily they’re supported by a stellar assortment of actors, most at the top of their game. Pacino had in fact just come off his Oscar win for Scent of a Woman and he seems to relish the chance to play a character this conflicted, at times incredibly naïve and at others unbelievably street smart. Ultimately, though, it’s Penn’s work that is going to stick most forcefully with a lot of viewers. You may in fact not believe you’re actually seeing the actor when you first lay eyes on David Kleinfeld, so startling is the transformation, both physically and psychologically. It’s one of the most commanding tours-de-force in relatively recent film, and if you’re drawn to Carlito’s Way for no other reason than to experience this incredible performance, you most likely won’t come away disappointed.

Carlito's Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080 disc included with this release.

Carlito's Way is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Arrow Video with an HVEC / H. 265 encoded 2160p transfer in 2.39:1. Arrow's insert booklet provides a minimal amount of technical information about the transfer, to whit:

Carlito's Way is presented in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio with DTS:X / DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 and 5.1 audio.

The UHD presents the film graded in HDR10, while the Blu-ray presents the film graded in standard dynamic range.

The film was restored and supplied in 4K by NBC Universal.

All audio mixes were remastered by NBC Universal.

I'll start out by noting in passing that Arrow's 1080 disc in this package is encoded via AVC rather than the old VC-1 encode on the Universal disc, and as can probably be gleaned from the screenshots accompanying this review, even that presentation is a bit brighter and arguably slightly warmer than the old Universal 1080 release, two qualities that I would say port over to the 4K UHD version. Detail levels enjoy at least minor improvement, and I'd argue that in some selected scenes, notably some of the more brightly lit moments like the early courtroom sequence, they really pop with considerable authority even when stacked up against an already generally excellent 1080 presentation. The palette here struck me as just slightly skewed toward warmer tones, especially with HDR, so that things have a slightly purplish-red cast at times. The black and white moments are especially striking and offer really sumptuous contrast. As Marty noted in his review of Universal's own 4K UHD release, there are some moments of passing softness, and I'd go further to state that a few dark scenes in particular aren't especially aided by HDR in terms of revealing new information, but on the whole I found this to be a really nicely upgraded version. My score is 4.25.

Carlito's Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 1080 disc in this package replicates the Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (along with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 option), while the 4K UHD disc ups the ante with a really nicely rendered DTS:X track. As Marty mentioned with regard to the Universal DTS:X track, this isn't particularly "showy", but I was perhaps a bit more satisfied overall than Marty was with regard to some really nicely placed ambient environmental effects and a gorgeously spacious accounting of Patrick Doyle's beautiful score, which as I mentioned in my long ago review of Universal's 1080 release, features some elegiac string writing which is very redolent of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" and Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis." Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available.

Carlito's Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

4K UHD Disc

• Commentaries

  Audio Commentary with Matt Zoller Seitz

  
  

  Select Scene Commentary with Dr. Douglas Keesey

1080 Disc

• Commentaries

  Audio Commentary with Matt Zoller Seitz

  
  

  Select Scene Commentary with Dr. Douglas Keesey

• Interviews

  Carlito & The Judge (HD; 12:32) is an interview with Judge Edwin Torres, author of Carlito's Way and After Hours, both of which provided source material for the film.

  
  

  Cutting Carlito's Way (HD; 17:22) features editors Bill Pankow and Kristina Boden.

  
  

  De Palma on Carlito's Way (HD; 5:28) offers an archival interview with the director.

• De Palma's Way (HD; 17:33) is an interesting appreciation by critic David Edelstein.


• All the Stitches in the World: The Locations of Carlito's Way (HD; 2:59) tours a number of locations with then and now shots.


• The Making of Carlito's Way (HD; 34:36) is the archival featurette that was also included on previous releases.


• Deleted Scenes (HD; 8:18)


• Original Promotional Featurette (HD; 5:13)


• Trailers

  Teaser Trailer (HD; 1:46)

  
  

  Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:46)

• Image Gallery (HD)

Additionally, this is another very handsomely packaged limited edition from Arrow that comes housed in a nice slipbox featuring newly commissioned artwork by Obviously Creative. The slipbox encloses the keepcase with a reversible sleeve, which itself hold what are described as seven double sided postcard sized lobby card reproductions, but which are black and white photos of various characters. A nicely appointed booklet contains writing by Barry Forshaw and original production notes. Finally a double sided fold out poster is included.

Carlito's Way 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Brian De Palma manages to helm a film that delivers a lot of cinematic sweep while also offering uniformly excellent performances by Pacino, Miller, a great supporting cast, and most especially Penn in one of his most unusual interpretations. It's dour and unrelenting, but Carlito's Way is never less than fully involving. This Arrow release does the film proud both in terms of providing solid technical merits, while offering a glut of both on disc and "extracurricular" supplements. Highly recommended.