Directed by Brian De Palma. With Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, John Leguizamo. A Puerto Rican former convict, just released from prison, pledges to stay away from drugs and violence despite the pressure around him and lead on to a better life outside of N.Y.C.
Watched most of this last night and finished the last act today. Somehow I’d missed this while I was in college, so I thought I’d come back and revisit it after watching Scarface relatively recently. In general it’s essentially Scarface all over again. Seems so out of place watching Pacino play a Puerto Rican, but somehow it happened. There’s such a sense of fatalism here and the main character even predicts his downfall and roughly how its going to happen. Penelope Ann Miller has some great nuance here that I don’t think she was able to show in other performances. Definitely smacks of late 80’s/early 90’s overindulgence for movies of this type.
Not sure I’d spend the time to watch this again…
