Mile High Escorts aired on Lifetime on July 19th. Because I was hosting the #ScarySocial live tweet of City of the Living Dead, I missed it but thanks to my DVR, I was able to record it and watch it earlier today. Seriously, will there ever be a better invention than the DVR?
Mile High Escorts tells the story of Lauren (Saxon Sharbino). Lauren is a flight attendant. She gets to fly all over the world and she’s even put in a request to be assigned to the Paris route. How could her life get any better? Well, don’t ever take your happiness for granted because reality soon intrudes on Lauren’s perfect world. The airline announces that they’re going to be cutting back on flights, which means that Lauren and her friend Ashley (Kara Royster) are going to be flying less and also making a lot less money! But Lauren needs that money because her father is on the verge of getting kicked out of his home. And Ashley needs the money because …. well, Hell, who doesn’t need money? (I totally related to Ashley.)
Fortunately, a chance meeting with Hannah (Christina Moore) might be just the solution to Lauren and Ashley’s problems. Hannah owns a private airline and she’s always looking for new flight attendants. Because her airline is exclusively used by wealthy, handsome, and single (if just for the weekend) men, her flight attendants have to be attractive and they have to be friendly. They also have to be willing to spend time with their clients even after the airplane has landed. She offers Lauren a job but Lauren, at first, is reluctant. It sounds too much like an escort service to her, largely because it is. But then Lauren’s hours get cut and her father’s unpaid bills start to pile up and soon, Lauren and Ashley are mile high escorts!
At first, everything seems great but, as we soon discover, the life of a mile high escort is not a simple one. Sure, at first, it’s a lot of fun. All of the passengers are handsome and rich and like to have a good time. Lauren even makes a connection with Thomas (Esteban Benito), who appears to be a rare nice guy. But this is a Lifetime movie so you know the fun can’t last. It turns out that the private airline business is indeed a shady one and someone is murdering mile high escorts. Can Lauren and Ashley figure out what’s going on before they become the next victims?
I absolutely loved Mile High Escorts. This movie had everything that I love about Lifetime movies. The plot was melodramatic and full of scheming and sex. The clothes were to die for. The men were handsome. Christina Moore did a great job keeping you guessing as to Hannah’s motivations and both Saxon Sharbino and Kara Royster were likable in the lead roles. This was a fun Lifetime film. You don’t watch a film like this and worry about whether or not the plot makes total sense. You certainly don’t watch a film like this because you’re hoping for a realistic portrait of what it means to be a mile high escort. You watch a film like this because it’s fun! And Mile High Escorts definitely was.
Max Castle (John Davidson) is a conman who gets arrested in Florida because of a shady real estate deal. The judge releases him into the custody of his older brother, an attorney named Stephen (Robert Castle). Though Max is technically just a paralegal, he secretly helps out his brother’s clients but running elaborate scams on the people who have cheated them. When businessman Lyle Rafferty (Jack Kehoe) embezzles money from his own charity and then lets one of his employees take the fall, Max decides that Rafferty is going to be his next target.
Shell Game was a made-for-TV movie. It’s pretty obvious that it was meant to be the pilot for a weekly series, where I guess Max would have pulled a con on every different evildoer every week. Because the show is more interested in setting up who Max is and why he cons people, there’s not much dramatic tension in Shell Game. Max tricks Rafferty into buying a worthless gold mine and Rafferty falls for every single trick that Max pulls on him. Unfortunately, since Rafferty is such an easy target, there’s no real pay-off to seeing him get conned. It’s not like The Sting, where there were real stakes and dangers involved in Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s pursuit of Robert Shaw’s money. The con is just too easy.
On the plus side, Max’s old partner-in-crime is played by Tom Atkins. Atkins is so believable as a veteran conman with a heart of gold that he probably would have been a better pick for the lead role than the likable but bland John Davidson. The rest of the cast is forgettable.
Would Shell Game have worked as a weekly series? Maybe, especially if Tom Atkins was a part of the regular cast. The idea of a former conman now running scams on other con artists had the potential to be intriguing and Max hints that he was framed by his partners in Florida. I guess a weekly series would have explored that in greater detail. However, it was not to be. This shell game was played once and then forgotten.
A man named Hank (Jeremy Gardner), who owns a pretty nice house out in the country, is holding a shotgun. He’s just shot a hole through his front door. Later, when the sun rises, he’ll walk around his land, carrying his gun and searching for anything that shouldn’t be there. When an unfamiliar car drives down the road, he fires at it.
Hank has a few reasons for being paranoid. He’s convinced that there’s something out there. For the past two weeks, Hank claims that there’s been a monster scratching at the front door. His friends tell him that it’s probably just a bear but Hank swears that it’s not. It’s too big and strong and strange to be a bear. It’s a monster, Hank swears.
Most of his friends assume that Hank is losing it. It probably doesn’t help that Hank started talking about this monster around the same time that his girlfriend Abby (Brea Grant), left him. Hanks claims that he has no idea why Abby left. He assumes that she’s down in Florida with an old boyfriend but he doesn’t know for sure. Whenever anyone suggests that he might want to think about why he and Abby are having problems, Hank steers the conversation back to the monster that he claims is trying to break into the house.
Hank spends his nights waiting for the monster and thinking about Abby. We see flashbacks to his relationship with Abby and what we immediately notice is that they always seem to be happy. In Hank’s memories, we never see them fighting or any hints that there was ever any trouble in their relationship. Yet, no one seems to be surprised that Abby left Hank so, obviously, it was clear to everyone else that Abby wasn’t happy. Are we seeing real memories of Hank and Abby or are we just seeing things the way that Hank has chosen to remember them?
After Midnight is a hybrid of a horror movie and a relationship drama. It’s definitely not a film for everyone. It moves at its own deliberate pace. Some of the dialogue is a bit overwritten and I’m still not really sure how Hank managed to get away with firing a shotgun at a moving car. (The film explains that he’s got a relative on the police force but it still seems like a bit of a stretch.) There’s a very lengthy scene that is just made up of a largely static shot of Abby and Hank talking about their relationship. It’s one of those scene that you’re either going to love or you’re going to hate. Myself, I liked the fact that the film was just as concerned with Abby and Hank as a couple as it was with whatever was hiding in the darkness. It helped that Gardner and Grant were a likable and believable couple. That said, if you’re only watching this film for the horror elements, you’ll probably get annoyed.
However, After Midnight also features what is perhaps one of the greatest jump scares that I’ve ever seen. It occurs towards the end of the film so yes, it does demand a little bit of patience on your part. But that patience will be rewarded! Seriously, I’m not going to spoil it but I will say that I literally fell off my couch in shock when it happened. It was a perfectly executed moment and one that entirely justified that patience required to reach it.
After Midnight is on Prime. It’s not for everyone but I liked it.
As far as states go, Arkansas usually doesn’t get much respect. In a country where much of the culture is dominated by city-dwelling secular liberals, Arkansas is a state the remains stubbornly rural, religious, and conservative. If your grandparents were a state, they’d probably look a lot like Arkansas. Arkansas is viewed as being old-fashioned and when it does make the news, it’s usually not for anything that anyone in the state particularly wants to brag about. Democrats will always view Arkansas as being the home of Mike Huckabee. Republicans will never forgive the state for springing the Clintons on the rest of the nation. (Interestingly enough, Mike Huckabee and Bill Clinton both grew up in the same tiny town.) Little Rock has gangs and government corruption. Hot Springs has gamblers looking to hide out from the mob. Fouke has the Boggy Creek Monster while Ft. Smith is best-known for having once been home to the hanging judge, Isaac Parker. You get the idea. When it comes to the way that the rest of the country views the state, it often seems as if poor Arkansas just can’t catch a break.
With all that in mind, I have to say that I really love Arkansas. My paternal grandparents lived in Arkansas and I’ve still got relatives all over the state. Arkansas was one of the many states where my family lived while I was growing up. (The others were — deep breath — Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Louisiana.) We would stay in Arkansas for months at a time, depending on how well my mom and dad were getting along at the time. It’s an unpretentious state, one that’s full of friendly, no-nonsense people and beautiful countryside. I have a lot of good memories of Arkansas. It’s always in the back of my mind that, wherever I’m living, I can always just go back to Arkansas and spend the rest of my life living in a small town with my cousins. Of course, I’d probably end up miserable over the lack of movie theaters. Whenever I’m living in the city, I find myself yearning for the simplicity and decency of the country. Whenever I’m in the country, I find myself missing the excitement of the city.
The Natural State (as Arkansas is officially nicknamed) is not only the setting for some of my most cherished memories. It’s also the setting for a film called, appropriately enough, Arkansas. The directorial debut of actor Clark Duke, Arkansas tells the story of four very different men. Kyle Ribb (Liam Hemsworth) is quiet and rather stoic. Swin Horn (Clark Duke) is talkative, eccentric, and perhaps a bit too cocky for his own good. They both work at a national park, where their boss is a veteran ranger named Bright (John Malkovich). Of course, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to notice that neither Kyle nor Ribb really seem to do much work at the park. And, for that matter, Bright certainly does own a big and impressive house for someone who has spent the majority of his life as a ranger….
Kyle, Swin, and Bright are actually drug dealers. They transport drugs all over the southern half of the United States. Kyle and Swin are supervised by Bright. Bright, meanwhile, reports to the mysterious Frog. Kyle and Swin have never actually met Frog and there are rumors that he might not even exist. Of course, the film has already revealed to us that Frog (played by Vince Vaughn) does exist and is a local pawnshop owner.
Kyle narrates the film, informing us that the difference between Southern organized crime and Northern organized crime is that, in the South, it’s not all that organized. As Kyle explains it, the infamous Dixie Mafia is not so much an organization as it’s just a collection of undisciplined lowlifes who have no real integrity or loyalty to anyone else. When you become a drug dealer in the South, you’re a drug dealer for life. There’s no going back if you change your mind. You start out at the bottom of the ladder and, whenever someone above you if either murdered or imprisoned, you get your chance to move up. No one is ever sure who is working for who or who can be trusted. Every order from the boss is examined and re-examined as the two dealers try to figure out whether or not they’ve won the trust of the mysterious Frog.
Unfortunately for Kyle and Swin, a misunderstanding leads to violence and several deaths. With no way to directly communicate with Frog to let him know what exactly happened, Kyle and Swin know that their lives could be in danger. The film follows Kyle and Swin as they prepare for their ultimate meeting with Frog while, at the same time, detailing in flashback how Frog himself eventually came to his position of power. Throughout the entire film, we watch as history repeats itself. As Kyle said, once you’re a drug dealer, you’re a drug dealer for life.
Arkansas is a surprisingly low-key film. Kyle, Swin, Bright, and Frog all manage to be both very laid back and very aggressive at the same time. (Anyone who has spent anytime with a large group of rednecks will understand what I’m talking about.) As a director, Clark Duke is as interested in capturing the rhythms of every day life in Arkansas as he is in orchestrating the inevitable violence that results from all of the film’s betrayals and mistakes and some of the best scenes in the film just feature Kyle and Swin talking about nothing in particular while driving down the interstate. The film’s mix of cheerful goofiness and existential horror will be familiar to anyone who has ever gotten lost on the way to Hot Springs.
Liam Hemsworth and Clark Duke are sympathetic in the lead roles, though Hemsworth’s Southern accent does slip a few times. Swin meets a woman (Eden Brolin) in a grocery store and their subsequent romance manages to be both creepy and touching at the same time. John Malkovich is, as usual, wonderfully eccentric. That said, the film is pretty much dominated by Vince Vaughn, who plays Frog as being both dangerously ruthless and also as someone who understands that his eventual downfall is inevitable. Frog came to power by betraying his boss and, as played by Vaughn, Frog is very much aware that he’s destined to eventually be betrayed as well. Frog has made peace with both his place in the world and the reality of his situation and, in many ways, that makes him an even more dangerous character than he would be otherwise. He has nothing to lose and he knows it.
Obviously, I liked Arkansas, both the state and the movie. It’s an well-done work of Southern pulp.
Harry Freeman (Robert Culp) is a radio talk show host in California who specializes in abusing his listeners. They call in and they tell Harry their problems and their opinions and then Harry tells them that they’re stupid and whiny. Despite (or maybe because of) his abrasive style, Harry is very popular. Everyone on the California coast listens to him in the morning.
When a depressed teenage girl named Ingrid (Elayne Heilveil) calls his show and says that she’s going to kill herself, Harry doesn’t taker her seriously and tells her to go ahead and do it. It’s only after he hangs up on her that he realizes that she might have actually been telling the truth. When Harry calls the cops to tell them about the call, they treat him in much the same way that he treated Ingrid. They refuse to take him or Ingrid seriously.
Not getting any help from the police, Harry turns to his listeners. He asks them to help him track down Ingrid and to keep her from harming herself. The film alternates between scenes of Ingrid meeting people throughout the day and then Harry in his studio, taking calls from those people. Since Ingrid is no longer listening to Harry’s show, she has no idea that people are looking for her and it becomes a race against time to find her before she carries out her plans.
A Cry For Help is largely a showcase for Robert Culp, a talented actor whose career was often harmed by his own independence and reputation for being abrasive. That reputation made him the perfect choice to play Harry and Culp gives a terrific performance as a not particularly nice man trying to do the right thing for once. Interestingly, the film keeps it ambiguous as to whether Harry has really had an attack of conscience or if he’s just trying to save Ingrid for the publicity and the ratings. Even at the end of the film, it’s hard to know if Harry was really worried about Ingrid ending her life or if he was just looking to promote himself.
Along with Culp, the film’s cast is a who’s who of 70s television actors. Among those who Ingrid and Harry deal with during the day: Michael Lerner, Bruce Boxlietner, Ken Swofford, Chuck McCann, Julius Harris, and Gordon Jump. Seeing Jump in the film was especially interesting since he would later star in another production about the potential power of radio, WKRP In Cincinnati.
A Cry For Help is a suspenseful made-for-TV movie from 1975. It’s never been released on DVD but it is on YouTube.
Tim Murphy (Don Johnson, with a huge mustache) is a Vietnam vet who is still haunted by his actions during the war. As a result, he can’t hold down a job, he’s abusive to his wife, and he’s woken up in the middle of the night by constant nightmares. One day, at the unemployment office, he meets another vet named Luke (Robert F. Lyons) and the two of them bond over their shared experiences. While Tim tries to come to terms with what happened during the war, his wife Paula (Lisa Blount) tries to keep the household together.
Barely released in 1985, Cease Fire is a largely but unfairly forgotten Vietnam film. According the film’s imdb page, Don Johnson once told an interviewer that he couldn’t even remember starring in a film called Cease Fire. That piece of trivia sounded too good to be true and, after doing a google search, I have not been able to come across any interviews where Johnson says that. In fact, in an interview with the AV Club, Johnson says that he filmed Cease Fire in Miami shortly after doing his first audition for Miami Vice. According to Johnson this was in the early stages of Miami Vice‘s development, before Michael Mann was even attached to the project. Since Miami Vice premiered (with Mann producing and Johnson starring) in 1984, that probably means that Cease Fire was filmed in either 1982 or 1983. Considering that it was a low-budget and talky film about a very unpopular war, it is not surprising to discover that it sat on the shelf for a few years before finally being released in order to capitalize on the sudden stardom of its main actor.
Even though both take place in Miami and feature Don Johnson as a Vietnam vet, Miami Vice and Cease Fire are as different as night and day. Cease Fire is a low-key and muted character study of a traumatized man who is struggling to face what happened in the past. There’s not much action but there is a lot of talking. Some of the dialogue is clumsy and obvious but both Don Johnson and Robert F. Lyons give good performance as the traumatized vets and Cease Fire is honest enough to admit that, even if he does take a few steps in the right direction, Tim still has a long road ahead of him. Cease Fire, which never got a DVD release but which is available on Amazon Prime, is a sincere look at the reality of PTSD and the struggle that many vets face when they first return home. It’s not a perfect movie but it’s saved by its own good intentions and Johnson’s sincere performance in the main role.
Cease Fire was also the first film to be directed by David Nutter. Nutter is today probably best known for directing several episodes of Games of Thrones, a show that has even less in common with Cease Fire than Miami Vice.
Jake (Dan Haggerty) is a former Marine and sock car racer from Minnesota who comes out to Los Angeles in search of a new beginning. A fan of John Wayne, the laid back Jake always tries to do the right thing. His first day in L.A., he thwarts a purse snatching and gets a girlfriend named Jenny (Dana Bentley). He also gets a job as a repo man. He repossesses cars from people who aren’t paying their bills and he always does it with a polite smile on his face. He’s the nicest repo man around but that doesn’t keep him from getting on the wrong side of some of the people he meets. When he repossesses the car of a local pornographer, the mob demands that Jake take part in an illegal demolition derby. If he wins, he’ll live. If he loses, both he and everyone who matters to him will die.
Haggerty’s genial presence is the best thing about Repo Jake, a low-budget movie that would probably be unwatchable without him. Haggerty’s so likable that he makes scenes work even when they shouldn’t. My favorite moment was when he walked in on a sleazy photographer trying to manipulate a model into posing topless. “I’m here to repossess your car and I’m pissed off,” Jake politely says before knocking the photographer across the room. If you didn’t know who Dan Haggerty was, you might think that the producers just grabbed a real repo man off the streets and made him the star of their movie. With his big beard and his mellow vibes, Haggerty was a legitimate Hollywood character. Though he found fame playing Grizzly Adams on television, he was arrested in 1984 for selling cocaine to an undercover police officer and his career never really recovered. Haggerty went from being a TV star to appearing in movies like Repo Jake.
The plot of Repo Jake is pretty dumb and nearly impossible to follow. It never makes sense that Jake would be forced to take part in the demolition derby. Actually, nothing about the movie makes sense but a lot of cars get wrecked, a helicopter gets repossessed, and Dan Haggerty knocks a purse snatcher through a store window and it’s all so stupid and Jake’s so friendly that the end result is actually pretty cool. Repo Jake is saved by the sheer likability of Dan Haggerty. It’s hardly a good movie but, at the same time, it’s not a terrible way to spend 90 minutes of your life.
After you watched Carlito’s Way, you may have asked yourself, “Gee, I wonder how Carlito came to power in the first place? I wonder what he was like when he was young….”
Now, keep in mind, you may have asked yourself that. I did not ask myself that. To be honest, I didn’t really care. Carlito’s Way pretty much told me everything that I needed to know about Carlito’s past. Just the fact that people on the street respected him as soon as he got out of prison and that everyone was trying to get him to restart his life of crime told me that Carlito was obviously a big deal in the past. So, I didn’t really need a prequel.
But, obviously, the people behind the 2005 film, Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power, disagreed. I guess I can understand their logic. When you’ve got a hit film, it’s only natural to try to do a follow-up. And when the first film ends with the main character dying, you really don’t have much choice but to do a prequel. And let’s give credit where credit is due. Long before the movies were made, Carlito Brigante was the main character of two novels written by Edwin Torres. Carlito’s Way: Rise To Power is based on the first of those novels and Torres reportedly said that he appreciated that the prequel stuck close to what he had written. So, it’s not like they just made up this film’s plot out of thin air.
That said, it’s still not a very good film. It takes place in the 60s, with young Carlito (Jay Hernandez) working his way up the ladder in New York’s drug chain. His partners, who he met in jail, are Earl (Mario Van Peebles) and Rocco (Michael Kelly). When they’re release from jail, they find themselves in the middle of drug war between Hollywood Nicky (Sean Combs) and the Bottolota Family, led by Artie (Burt Young). The three friends play the two sides against each other while also dealing with all of the usual betrayals and random violence that one normally expects to find in a movie like this. Luis Guzman shows up, playing a coke-snorting hitman named Nacho. It’s a bit disconcerting since Guzman played a different character in Carlito’s Way but it’s still always good to see Luis Guzman.
Anyway, the main problem with Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power can be seen in the casting of the main characters. Carlito’s Way had Al Pacino, Sean Penn, and John Leguizamo. Rise To Power has Jay Hernandez and Mario Van Peebles. Whatever gritty authenticity the film may be aiming for vanishes as soon as Mario Van Peebles looks straight at camera and smiles at his reflection. As for Jay Hernandez, he’s a likable actor but he’s the exact opposite of intimidating. You’d probably say yes if he asked you to prom but he does’t exactly come across like someone who could take over the New York drug racket. When Sean Combs is the most dangerous person in your movie, you’re looking at trouble.
Director Michael Bregman attempts to imitate a bit of Brian De Palma’s style from the first film and Jay Hernandez does his best to sound Pacino-like in his voice-over narration but the end result is flat and predictable. This is an offer that you can refuse.
Terrorists have taken over the local power and water plant and are threatening to poison the water supply if their demands are not meant. Among those that they are holding hostage is a group of college students who were on what would have otherwise been the most boring field trip of their lives. While Colonel Gentry (Robert Forster) tries to negotiate with the terrorists, one college student, Lenny Slater (Corey Haim), takes matters into his own deadly hands. Lenny also finds time to ask track star Jenny (Ami Dolenz) to go to the homecoming dance with him.
How many times can the exact same thing happen to the same person? That’s what you might expect Lenny Slater to ask as he finds himself sneaking around and taking out terrorists one-by-one. Demolition University is a sequel to Demolition High, with Lenny Slater now in college and a member of the school’s football team. What’s strange is that, even though Haim is playing the same character from the first film, no one mentions the events of Demolition High. No one mentions that Lenny not only blew up his old school but he saved the entire midwest from being bombed into a nuclear ash heap. When Lenny tries to tell Prof. Harris (Laraine Newman!) that it’s obvious that terrorists have taken over the power plant, she ignores him because he has a history of playing pranks. But he also has a history of tracking down and killing terrorists! I would listen to him.
Demolition High wasn’t good but it was watchable. Demolition University is just dull. Haim actually gives a better performance here than he did in the first film, if just because it’s easier to buy him as a college student instead of as a high school student. But he’s actually barely in the film. Most of the running time is taken up with Robert Forster trying to negotiate with the leader of the terrorists. That’s kind of cool because Robert Forster was the man but the movie still seems like what Die Hard would have been if it had just been two hours of Paul Gleason standing outside the tower while Bruce Willis killed people offscreen. Even when we do get Lenny fighting the the terrorists, the action scenes feel flat and interchangeable. There’s nothing to really distinguish them from every other 90s action film that you’ve ever seen.
Demolition University has higher production values than Demolition High and it actually looks like a real movie but it’s just not much fun. I’m not surprised that there was never a Demolition Grad School.
It’s been a week so I guess it’s time for me to get back to reviewing mob movies, right? Usually, I do my best not to take such a long break in-between reviewing films — especially when it’s a themed-series of reviews — but I just got busy this week. It happens. Luckily, even when we get busy, the movie’s remain ready to be watched and reviewed.
Last week, I reviewed Scarface and The Untouchables, two gangster films from Brian De Palma. It only seems right to return to my look at the gangster genre by considering another Brian De Palma film. Released in 1993, Carlito’s Way reunites De Palma with Scarface’s Al Pacino. In Scarface, Pacino played a Cuban named Tony who was determined to get into the drug trade. In Carlito’s Way, Pacino plays a Puerto Rican named Carlito who is desperate to escape the drug trade.
Carlito’s Way opens with Carlito getting released from prison in 1975. He’s spent the past five years serving time on a drug conviction. Originally, Carlito was sentenced to 30 years but his friend and attorney, David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn), managed to get the conviction thrown out on a technicality. Now a free man, Carlito finds himself torn between two options. He can either get involved, once again, in the drug trade or he can go straight. Returning to his life of crime will mean once again doing something that he’s good at but it will also require him to deal with people who he can’t stand, like the sleazy Benny Blanco (John Leguizamo). Going straight will mean escaping from New York with his girlfriend, a dancer named Gail (Penelope Ann Miller). The problem is that it takes money to start a new life and there are people in New York who have no intention of allowing Carlito to leave.
Of the three De Palma-directed gangster films that I’ve recently watched, Carlito’s Way is probably the weakest. De Palma has always been a frustratingly uneven director and Carlito’s Way contains some of his worst work and some of his best. For instance, there’s a brilliant sequence where Carlito goes to a hospital to get revenge on someone who betrayed him and it is perhaps one of DePalma’s best set pieces. But then there’s other scenes where DePalma’s trademark style feels rather empty and counterproductive. Just when you’re starting to sympathize with Carlito’s predicament, DePalma will suddenly toss in a fancy camera trick and remind you that you’re just watching a film and that Carlito Brigante is just a character in that film. That technique worked well in the satiric Scarface and the mythological Untouchables but it often feels unnecessary in Carlito’s Way.
Al Pacino plays Carlito and, like DePalma’s direction, the end result is a bit uneven. On the one hand, Pacino and Penelope Ann Miller have a likable chemistry, even if Carlito and Gail don’t really make sense as a couple. On the other hand, this is one of those films where Pacino does a lot of yelling. Sometimes it works and sometimes, it’s just too theatrical to be effective. It’s hard not to compare Pacino’s performance here with his slyly humorous work in Scarface. Tony Montana yelled because he genuinely enjoyed getting on people’s nerves. The way that Tony expressed himself told us everything that we needed to know about the character. Carlito yells because that was Al Pacino’s trademark at the time the film was made.
The best thing about the film is Sean Penn’s performance as David Kleinfeld. Kleinfeld is one of the sleaziest character to ever appear in a movie and Penn seems to be having a good time playing him. (Watching the film, I found myself wishing that Penn was willing to have that much fun with all of his roles.) Penn doesn’t make Kleinfeld into a straight-out villain. Instead, he portrays Kleinfeld as being a somewhat nerdy guy who thought it would be fun to pretend to be a gangster and who has snorted too much cocaine to understand the amount of trouble that he’s brought upon himself. Just check out Penn in the scene where he’s dancing at a disco. There’s a joy to Penn’s performance in Carlito’s Way that you typically don’t see from him as an actor. He’s actually fun to watch in Carlito’s Way.
It’s a flawed film but fortunately, the movie’s good moments are strong enough to help carry the audience over the weaker moments. The movie often threatens to collapse under the weight of its own style but it seems like whenever you’re on the verge of giving up on the film, De Palma’s kinetic camerawork will calm down enough to allow you to get at least mildly invested in Carlito’s predicament or Sean Penn’s amoral dorkiness will create an amusing moment and you’ll think to yourself, “Okay, let’s keep giving this a chance.” Carlito’s Way may not be an offer that you can’t refuse but it’s still fairly diverting.
Through the Shattered Lens 