Critic Reviews
66
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
13(52%)
mixed
12(48%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 25 Critic Reviews
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Metascore
Metascore
100
Though the story in Carlito’s Way is treated in a fatalistic sense, the moment-to-moment, frame-to-frame experience is anything but rigid and stodgy from over-determination. It sings, dances, punches, slinks, embeds. It moves like the luxurious tracking shots that punctuate the film.
100
Utterly compelling - Sean Penn is a powerhouse in support - and with a railway station set - piece in which De Palma actually betters what was his previously Untouchable effort.
90
Penn, with curled hair and wire-rims, makes a brilliant, slippery high-end shyster; his modulated hysteria is amazing. So is Brian De Palma’s direction. Few films actually made in the disco era can match the kinetic allure of this 1993 production, which has a bluesy undertow all its own.
90
Carlito's Way, like Casualties of War and Mission: Impossible, seems to stand at a nexus between commercial fealty and directorial idiosyncrasy; it's a sort of half-breed film that exudes personal vision but functions satisfactorily for the multiplex crowds at the same time.
88
The acting here, by Sean Penn, is a virtuoso tour de force - one of those performances that takes on a life of its own.
88
Carlito's Way reunites the Scarface team of Al Pacino and director Brian De Palma to much better effect than the first time around, proving there's a lot of life still to be found in the conventional urban-gangster movie. [12 Nov 1993, p.45]
80
Imagine the most exciting parts of The Fugitive but filmed with real moviemaking brio by director Brian De Palma (The Untouchables). [12 Nov 1993, p.20]
78
With a concluding chase/shoot-out episode that might even make Hitchcock jealous, Carlito's Way is a dandy piece of entertainment. If the story needs a bit more depth and reason, who really cares? There's hardly time to notice.
75
Carlito’s Way is perfectly okay entertainment, yet this 2-hour-and-21-minute movie never convinced me it wouldn’t have been every bit as good (if not better) as a lean and mean Miami Vice episode.
75
Sean Penn is excellent as a lawyer who gets in way over his modish curls, but the movie belongs to Pacino, who gives a remarkably controlled performance as a Wise Guy desperately trying to get smart. It's one of Pacino's best roles. [12 Nov 1993, p.3G]
