8.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.6 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.3 |
A Puerto Rican ex-con, just released from prison, pledges to stay away from drugs and violence—despite the pressure around him—and lead a better life outside New York City.
Starring: Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, John Leguizamo, Ingrid RogersCrime | 100% |
Drama | 92% |
Period | 36% |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
D-Box
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
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.
Nothing is black and white in 'Carlito's Way.' Except for this scene.
Carlito's Way blasts its way onto Blu-ray in a blood red VC-1 encoded transfer in full 1080p and a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Universal hasn't exactly been treating its catalog titles with a lot of care lately (Out of Africa and Spartacus are two recent, largely lamentable examples). The bad news is Universal doesn't seem to have done much with Carlito, following in the footsteps of those other, perhaps more illustrious, releases. The good news is that means no hideous edge enhancement and no apparent DNR. The bad news is the print does not seem to have been cleaned or restored, so there is occasional very slight damage and debris. The good news (is this ping pong or something?) is the film looks excellently sharp overall and well detailed, and colors are excitingly vibrant, especially on the red end of the spectrum. Black levels and contrast are very strong, and shadow detail is really exceptional. De Palma uses some interesting multi-hued palettes throughout the movie, which play out like a sort of nightmarish episode of pastel-laden Miami Vice, and the Blu-ray reproduces this wide variety of shades brilliantly. The film actually starts in a post-processed black and white sequence, and contrast is exceptional in those moments.
Carlito's Way's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix may not be as bombastic as some audiophiles might be expecting, especially considering the subject matter, but it's really a good track in and of itself, with a full and well rendered soundfield and some of the more consistently active rear channel effects I've heard recently. One of the greatest pleasures of this track is the absolutely gorgeous underscore by Patrick Doyle, with elegiac string writing which is very redolent of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" and Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis." While some of the foley effects like gunshots sound compressed and overly narrow, balance between dialogue, score and effects is very well modulated, with dialogue always easy to hear and directionally well placed.
Some, but not all, of the extras on the SD-DVD release of Carlito's Way have been ported over to this release:
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 and comes recommended.
1993
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Limited Edition
1993
Original Artwork | Limited Edition
1993
Remastered Edition
1993
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Director's Cut
1993
Theatrical Edition
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Extended Director's Cut
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25th Anniversary Edition
1998