Carlito's Way

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer Production Notes Cast & Crew Biographies
Rating
Year Released	1993
Running Time	138:09 Minutes
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2, 4	Director	Brian De Palma
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Al Pacino Sean Penn Penelope Ann Miller
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$39.95	Music	Patrick Doyle

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.44:1 (Measured)
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English French Portuguese Danish Finnish Swedish Norwegian Dutch	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, of a product that didn't exist until after the film's era
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, some dancing silhouettes in credits

    I could relate quite easily to this part of the story, and I could also relate to what comes next: Carlito's past occupation as a drug dealer keeps coming back to haunt him, with old partners and young thugs, who are looking to make a name for themselves, combining to drag him back into the violence of his old life. The sequence in which Carlito escorts his cousin to a drug deal that goes sour is a great example of what this movie really needed in my opinion: more blood and irony. Meanwhile, Kleinfeld's drug addiction forces him into an ugly situation where he has a choice between going to prison or betraying his most notorious client, which adds a subplot to the film which I personally feel is more interesting than the rest of it. After disposing of Kleinfeld and finally acquiring the funds to get out of New York, we are treated to a climactic showdown at Grand Central station, in spite of the fact that trains to Miami do not depart from there. Another plot goof is when Gail orders a Diet Pepsi at 58:35, which would be difficult to do in the late 1970s given that the product didn't even exist until the mid-1980s.

    Having said that much, you would be forgiven for thinking that I absolutely hated this film, which is not exactly true. The film is enjoyable in its own way, it's just that it never manages to rise above the realms of the average gangster film, which is a real pity when you consider the potential of the premise. Perhaps if Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola had written and/or directed this film, it would have retained a tighter, punchier feel. As it stands, the film takes over two hours to tell a story that those two directors would have told in a hundred minutes, or at least made a bit more ironic and exciting. Still, those of you who enjoy Al Pacino's acting will at least enjoy the film enough to justify purchase, but I strongly advise a trial rental to those of you who do not digest films from this particular genre on a regular basis.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.44:1 (measured) and it is not 16x9 Enhanced. Personally, I think it is time that we put our collective feet down and demanded that Universal remaster all of the titles that they have presented in this manner, lest we suddenly decide to stop buying their discs altogether. I only own a television set with a selectable 16x9 mode, but I happen to like viewing films in the resultant vertically elongated shape that results from not using it, because it can be easier on the eyes of people like my father, whose vision is less than perfect. In any case, the image is very sharp, with only a moderate blur in the backgrounds at any time. Shadow detail is very good, with the darker areas of the transfer containing many fine details for the enjoyment of the viewer, although some scenes were intentionally shot a little too dark, presumably in order to appease the MPAA. There was no low-level noise apparent in the transfer at any time.

    The colour saturation is rich, but the first thing that struck me about it was that it looked very natural, with a myriad of warm colours springing out of every scene. This is, in fact, one of the best transfers I have seen in a long time where colour saturation is concerned.

    MPEG artefacts were not noticed at any point in the transfer. The major film-to-video artefact of this transfer is shimmering, which is present to a small degree in nine out of ten shots. While it wasn't distracting because of its severity, it did eventually become a moderate distraction and a mild annoyance because it was quite frequent. I have to say that I honestly expect a lot better than this from a major film studio such as Universal, as this devil-may-care approach to transferring films to the highest-quality home theatre medium we have today makes them appear cheap and trashy. Film artefacts were rare, and very small when they were present. It is such a pity that I have to mark down the transfer for the aliasing, because the rest of the transfer is exemplary.

    This disc is presented in the RSDL format, but several attempts to find the layer change yielded no results. I guess that means it is a good one.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times, although some speech tends to be quite rapid and heavily accented in some sequences. There are many moments when the dialogue was ADRed, and the audio sync is somewhat marginal at these times, but there were no major problems with audio sync.

    The score music by Patrick Doyle is a slow, reflective effort that built an appropriate atmosphere for the moments when it appeared. It seemed to have a certain noir feel about it, making the long shots featuring the New York environment seem like tourist advertisements rather than part of a film. Not that this is a bad thing, because the score music really does highlight the beauty and the ugliness of the scenery at the same time.

    The surround channels were variably active, with music, gun battles, and ambient noises frequently present in the rear channels. This would have been good if the surround activity was consistent, but the mix truly puzzles me because most of the dialogue-only sequences collapsed into the frontal soundstage. This was a terrible pity, but also to be expected because many sequences have nothing besides dialogue in the overall soundtrack. The collapse of surround channel activity did not occur often, but it was very noticeable when it did occur. The subwoofer was also unevenly used, with only a handful of sequences receiving any low-frequency support. The subwoofer wasn't conspicuous when it was used, but it was not used with any great frequency. Once again, this was more because of the demands of the soundtrack rather than any specific fault of the transfer.
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Production Notes

Cast Biographies

    The video quality is good, but should have been much better.

    The audio quality is good, but let down by a lack of surround channel activity in some sequences.

    The extras are limited.
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (my bio sucks... read it anyway)
September 20, 2000