Review: Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power


As the title suggests, this film follows a young Carlito Brigante (Jay Hernandez) and his rise to power from about the 1960s. His crew is unorthodox, especially for the time; You see, Carlito is Puerto-Rican, dapper Earl (Mario Van Peebles) is Black, and Rocco (Michael Kelly) is an Eye-Talian. Luis Guzman is hilarious as an over-the-top hitman who comes into the middle of things to steal a few scenes, Tarantino-style. Sean Combs plays a powerful gangster who is fine with you so long as you don’t step on his turf, ‘yo! Burt Young plays a mob Patriarch for about the zillionth time, but is somewhat subdued here, thankfully (He’s a fine actor so long as he’s reined in by a strong director).

 

Fans of the original will hate this cheaper 2005 B-movie prequel to the Brian De Palma fave, but I expected a cheesy yet watchable B-movie and I got it. I’m OK with that. Umm, with Mario Van Peebles, Burt Young and Piddly Widdly Ding Dong in the cast, what were you expecting? An Altman film?

 

Hernandez hasn’t anything close to Al Pacino’s presence, but he also doesn’t have his irritating inclination to go way over-the-top and shout ‘Hoo-ah!’ either. He’s fine enough. Even better are a surprisingly charismatic Van Peebles (who is usually pretty bland), outrageously flamboyant scene-stealer Guzman (doing the right kind of over-the-top shtick. Get in, act up a storm, then leave before the audience tires of your histrionics- take note, Nic Cage!), and a genuinely fine supporting turn by Kelly, as one of the more level-headed mobster characters you are likely to come across.

 

Unfortunately, the story is seriously clichéd, nothing you haven’t seen a zillion times before (even if you haven’t seen the earlier film), so it is kinda hard to care. Also, I didn’t buy the period either, it’s supposed to be set before the first film, but aside from a Superfly Van Peebles, it seemed a little contemporary to me (<cough> Diddy <cough>) Still, it’s fairly tolerable and better than I had anticipated (as is Combs himself, though certainly no thespian, let’s face it). Written and directed by first-timer Michael Bregman, a relation of Martin Bregman, who of course, produced the original. 

 

Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more