Carlito's Way: Rise to Power

Where can I begin. I heard this movie was coming out and I was very mad. I am a huge fan of the original Carlito's Way and when I heard about this, I thought it would be just like almost all the other sequels that come out in Hollywood. I thought it would be bad. Boy was I wrong, this movie was much worse than I expected. Not saying all sequels are bad, but thats the problem with Hollywood these days, they make too many sequels and remakes and rush them. This was not a theater release, it is a DVD release. Still, in my opinion, there was no reason at all for this to be made. After I heard about this film was in progress, I then later heard Pacino was not in it. That right away killed any chance this movie had of being good. Why did I check this movie out then some of you may ask? Well I had the opportunity to see it so I did. I don't only watch movies that I have high expectations of, I had low expectations on this one obviously. I just wanted to see if it would have anything relevant in it. Now, if any of you reading this are a Carlito's Way fan, you know a lot of the story in the first one has to do with him going to jail.

*VERY MINOR SPOILER* I wont ruin anything, because this may actually make you not want to waste 2 hours watching this trash. All I will say is- in the end of Carlito's Way 2, we don't see Carlito go to jail. Now, I don't know about any of you, but I would have thought a prequel to Carlitos Way would show how he ended up in jail. I even had some interest in actually seeing what happened.

Now, thats not my only problem with the film. The actor who played Carlito did not do too bad a job, but he could not have saved this film if he tried. There's not even all those little things that should be thrown in there that Carlito's Way fans would like. You don't see any appearance of Kleinfeld or other key characters in the first one, I would have liked to see something like that. What is even worse, is Luis Guzman is in this film, yet he doesn't play the same character he plays in the first film. Big mistake on their part, why cast the same actor for a different character, it made the movie worse than it already was.

Bottom line, I am a Carlito's Way fan, this new straight to DVD release is a disgrace. If you are a fan, don't watch this movie coming in with high expectations. This movie did basically nothing for me, and it is definitely one movie I wont be picking up on DVD, or watching ever again.

In the 60's, the Puerto Rican Carlito Brigante (Jay Hernandez), the Afro-American Earl (Mario Van Peebles) and the Italian Rocco (Michael Kelly) become best friends while in prison. When they are released, Rocco intermediates a heroin business with a family of the Italian Mafia leaded by Artie Bottolota Sr. (Burt Young). Carlito negotiates with the lord Leroy "Hollywood Nicky" Barnes (Sean Combs) the area where the trio could operate in his neighborhood and sooner the three friends become powerful. Later, Carlito dates and has an affair with the beautiful Leticia (Jaclyn DeSantis). When Earl decides to move to Barbados with his girlfriend and leave the heroin business, his stupid younger brother causes a situation with the Italian mobsters, and Carlito and Rocco have to resolve the mess to save their lives.

"Carlito's Way: Rise to Power" is not as bad as written in many reviews in IMDb. Actually it is a good story, with the beginning of the criminal life of Carlito, showing his ability to negotiate. The story has good doses of humor, a decent plot and a surprising twist in the end. I do not dare to compare this movie with the excellent Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way, but I personally liked the explanations of the criminal life of Carlito and his friends. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Pagamento Final: Rumo ao Poder" ("The Final Payment: in the Way to the Power")

I haven't read the book nor watched the original Carlito's Way... all I know about the latter is who stars and who directs that one, and I know even less than that about the novels. Perhaps that's why this didn't come off as being as awful as people seem to feel it was... no basis for comparison. The story isn't poor, and it's decently enough told. The plot develops throughout, with some surprises. The acting varies. The lead could be better. Combs, eh, I don't know. Young isn't bad, but hey, is he ever? The pacing is fine. The music is fair. Editing could be better, but it's not terrible. Effects and such do reveal a budget, one that wasn't the biggest, but it's not as obvious as it could be. There is hardly any action, and it's certainly not worth watching this for. There could be more tension, where such is attempted built. Language is... loose, and there's violence, sexuality and drug use as well... this is hardly a film for children. The voice-overs leave a lot to be desired. All in all, you could find movies that deliver considerably less. Be aware that this is more of a gangster feature than an action flick. I recommend this to people who enjoy cinema(or, in this case, direct-to-video releases) regarding the environment. 5/10

A complete and utter slap to the face to DePalma and Pacino.

Do I need to even explain the plot? A rise from slums to riches in the ghetto streets of Harlem....yawn! Boring! What makes Carlitos Way a truly amazing movie was the sheer fact of storytelling and characters that explain how he got to where he was.

Shame on whoever greenlit this project.

Prequel? No.

Story? No.

Sean Puff Piffy Dadd farty licky? No..

Pass. Better movies out there. Go rent Number 23 with Jim Carrey. Trust me..you'll lauh harder.

This was just a terrible movie. It hurt me to watch it. Almost every action was unmotivated within the context of the movie, the acting was really poor (P.Diddy was the best actor which really says something about the movie) and the plot was generally predictable. Some links to Carlito's Way were okay, for example his dream of one day moving to the Carribien, but on the whole they were weak. The love interest in my opinion was flat out wrong but hey that's debatable. Anyways I really wasn't expecting much before watching the movie and I guess you could say even those expectations weren't met. I feel bad for Jay Hernandez because he actually is a decent actor (Friday Night Lights). He's lucky though because I'm sure there won't be too many people watching this movie. I generally give movies a decent rating if they spark my interest at all so I'm gonna go ahead and give this one two stars. Better luck next time. And yes I did enjoy Carlito's Way.