Carlito's Way: Rise to Power

Maybe the worst part of this film is the casting for the lead role Carlito Brigante, whichever way you look at it everybody expects a Pacino, but casting Jay Hernandez is a let down, even though he is a fine actor, he really had a lot to do to try and follow in Pacino's shoes, and i am afraid to say he failed dismally. Over all it is not a bad film, there is a lot worse out there, some nice acting from not so well known names, but i must say i was surprised by Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs performance, not your normal pop star turned pretend actor, he was really very good, and i for one will look forward to future work from him. I would suggest you take a look at this movie, forget about the original Carlito's Way, and just enjoy it for what it is.

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.

Marty Bregman should be ashamed of himself for putting his name on this. After he produced great films like Serpico,DDA,Scarface,SofL,and Carlito's Way. I understand they were trying to make Carlito younger like in the book Carlito's Way. The first movie w/ Al is based off of Eddie Torres After Hours. That being said at the end of Carlito's Way R2Power he is around 30 and most of the loose ends are connected, especially with David Kleinfeld, and Lalin. Also the book takes place from the 50's when he is a teen to the late 60's when he goes to Lewisburgh.Mini Bregman made a film that basically is trying market to hip-hop rap gangsters.

I agree with another user comment.. This film on its own would have been considered pretty good. But the fact that its a prequel to Carlito's Way means it will always be compared. Hernandez is a decent actor but he is not even in the same league as Pacino.

That being said, I felt that the acting was very good. There weren't any moments that made you cringe. I kind of worry when I see Mario Van Peebles in a movie because it means that the film is low budget. :) But even he was very solid as a 70s business man.

I even thought Sean Combs was very believable as Hollywood Nicky. Kudos to him for not sucking in a movie.

It is kind of unfortunate that this movie went straight to DVD.

Definitely worth a watch.

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.