CARLITO'S WAY

Brian De Palma may have built his reputation as the man most fond of paying homage to his idol, Alfred Hitchcock but if his career had amounted to nothing more than Hitchcock pastiches he could hardly be called an auteur in his own right. For many his gangster picture "Carlito's Way"
is still his best film. Look closely and you still might see the odd Hitchcock trope but this serious, beautifully written, (by David Koepp from two novels by Edwin Torres), and superbly acted movie shows a major film-maker working at the height of his powers. Al Pacino, in a stunning performance, is the gangster trying to go straight but finding it increasingly difficult to shake off his former life, particularly when he has a crooked lawyer dogging his every step, (a superb Sean Penn). Shot magnificently by Stephen H Burum in widescreen, this feels like a real epic. It's certainly one of the key American films of the nineties.