Carlito's Way (1993)

Ok so Carlito's Way was directed by Brian De Palma roughly I think 10 years after he directed Scarface. Both star Al Pacino as the principal character, but differ alot story wise. Scarface was about an immigrant criminal climbing the ladder of gangster life, and ultimately flushing his success down the crapper with his drug habit. Whereas Carlito's Way is about an immigrant criminal who's had enough of it all, basically he's just run out of steam, but he's finding it hard to leave the "life". Crime follows him around like an old mangy dog that follows you around alot, you know what I'm talkin about? Ya I don't quite know myself.

Sean Penn(frackin brilliant in this) plays this hot shot lawyer who's clients are all mobsters, and he gets Carlito out of a 30 year sentence after only 5 years served. So Carlito is obviously over the moon and basically in love with this guy. But now that he's out he wants to go straight. Once he ran a huge drugs operation on the streets and was in charge of like 90 guys, so he's a legend around the streets. But now all he wants to do is get some money together, $75 000, so he can set himself up as a used car dealer in the Bahamas. His old crime buddies laugh their asses off when they hear about this, but Carlito is determined.

First he's gotta get the money together, so he takes charge of a club who's customers are basically all Mafia "made" guys. And slowly but surely, he lands himself straight back into his old lifestyle, but he's willing to pay the price for his dream. But soon he finds himself too far in, "past the point of no return" as he says. Will he ever get to where he wants to be? Will he get the girl?(there's a bit of romance, underwritten in the script really) Will he sell cars one day? Will his past fatally catch up with him? Watch and find out!

So this is a really well made film, and it really has a terrific ending, it just seems to hit the right note perfectly. You've probably all seen this, it's really well known and all, but I just thought I'd give it some more praise.

Righteous Kill (2008)

Righteous Kill is a film directed by Jon Avnet, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and is seriously one big waste of time. It tries so hard, tries it's best to fit in with the cool kids of crime thrillers, but really there is no point to the film at all.

Two New York police detectives, Turk(De Niro) and his partner Rooster(Pacino), have worked as a team for years. They've grown tired of seeing criminals walk free because of lack of evidence and other such things. We get a sense that Turk especially is goin nuts. We are constantly interupted throughout the film with footage of Turk confessing to a number of killings. And when we join the pair throughout the working day, they come across murders that appear to be have been commited by a cop. Ok so we get the "subtle" hint that it's Turk. It's up to a rival duo of detectives who are suspicious of Turk to bring him down.

While the whole idea has potential to be interesting, the script, directing and editing of this film flushes that potential down the crapper. The ending is just so obvious it's beyond rediculous. Towards the end you get a sense that Pacino and De Niro are just having a laugh. They simply couldn't pull this one off by acting alone. This movie is an absolute waste of time.