De Palma has made a better gangster movie : Carlito's Way

Rating: 6/10 (13 November 2014)

In 1983, Brian de Palma, with the help of Oliver Stone, delivered Scarface, one of the most iconic gangster/mafia movie. The scenario, which depicts the lightning rise and fall of a Cuban political refugee who became a drug lord in 80's Miami, is solid overall but the movie undeniably would have benefited from a tighter editing because certain passages are a bit long, and the more the story progresses the more this lack of rhythm is noticeable, in the last 30-40 minutes it evens seems nothing is going on. Pacino is perfect in his role but you have to like the style, he's not far from overacting as often happens, and his character is so antipathetic that it's hard to relate to him which is inevitably penalizing. The rest of the cast is anecdotal, just think of Michelle « trophy wife » Pfeiffer. Scarface represents for a lot of people the quintessence of gangster movies, while other productions such as Goodfellas or Carlito's Way, from the same Brian de Palma, did a much better job.