De Palma and Pacino Prove: We Can't Change Who We Are

Gee, Al, your shirt looks . . . funny. Your hair looks . . . plastic. What's up with that?

 W  hen I was dating my wife to be, I knew she was ten years older than me, had some health issues—at the ripe old age of 42 she said she could never get pregnant due to something that happened in her past —had hypertension, diabetes, an addiction to cigarettes, and a personality so labile that it felt like if I somehow hooked her up to the terminals of the dead battery in my car she'd get it to start.

Still, I loved her and easily envisioned a life with her. We got married, had a child but did not live happily ever after. 

Before our daughter got cancer, my wife's heart failed and she nearly died but somehow, both made full recoveries. My partner swore she would quit smoking but never did and ended up back in the hospital several times with chest pain and still, we stayed together. I swore I would not be there for her the next time she ended up in the hospital but always was and always will be for one simple reason. When we were dating, even though we never said it to each other, we both needed saving and made a life together and that was all it took.

In 1983, Brian De Palma and Al Pacino teamed up to make what is now considered one of the better gangster movies of all time: Scarface. Ten years later, they were back at it with Carlito's Way where this time Pacino is an ex-gangster released from prison who is trying to be straight. 

As the cinematography in this film shows, just as De Palma cannot escape his obsession with Alfred Hitchcock, Carlito (Pacino) soon gets drawn back towards his old streets where he meets his old contact Rolando (played by Al Israel - the chainsaw wielding drug dealer from Scarface) and begins to run a bar where he hopes to make enough money to escape New York and go to the Bahamas to rent cars. 

His frizzy haired, sleazy, coke-head lawyer and best friend Kleinfeld (Sean Penn) who got him out of prison by exploiting the system, soon manipulates Carlito into doing dastardly deeds relying on his loyalty and his street smart code of conduct. Carlito's love interest Gail  (Penelope Ann Miller), also has dreams of improving her life from that of a sexy stripper to a respected dancer on Broadway.

As fate would have it, no one really changes in this movie, they are who they are. Gail swears she will never wipe up Carlito's blood ever again and she ends up doing just that. Carlito performs criminal acts for his friend because that's who he is and as he puts it "I don't invite this shit, it just comes to me, I run and it runs after me." 

De Palma is back to his old tricks again, trying to emulate Hitchcock and Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and manages to create some harrowing chase scenes forcing Pacino to run like a cockroach through crawlspaces and dive on escalators in shootouts. All the while, we root for Carlito and Gail as they make love to "You are so Beautiful" and the soulful singing of the great Joe Cocker, hoping they will find their dreams but deep down, we know how the story ends.

Ironically enough, I played "You are So Beautiful" at my half-assed wedding 12 years ago. I am still with my wife and always will be because like the characters in Carlito's Way, I can't change who I am.