Brian De Palma is an acclaimed and respected filmmaker. But it also feels like he’s never quite received his full due. His entire canon has only a combined three Golden Globe, Oscar and BAFTA Award wins — all coming for 1987’s The Untouchables. He was never really as respected as contemporaries like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese or William Friedkin. Nor (with the exception of launching the Mission: Impossible franchise) did De Palma ever really break out with a huge box office smash like, say, peers Steven Spielberg or George Lucas. Even some defenders and celebrants of his work freely characterize him as “an Alfred Hitchcock acolyte,” with an emphasis on the latter syllable.

Of course, De Palma crafted a number of films in his career that achieved their own hold over the popular zeitgeist, from his 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie to the gangland crime epic Scarface. And it is that latter 1983 drama, re-teaming the director with star Al Pacino, which provides a direct-link springboard to Carlito’s Way, re-released in celebration of its 30th anniversary in a superb new UHD/Blu-ray edition from Arrow Home Video.

The cool mastery of De Palma’s technical prowess is on full display in this solid and under-appreciated character study. Set in 1975 New York, the film centers on Carlito Brigante (Pacino), a career criminal sprung from a 30-year prison sentence on a technicality after only five years by his lawyer and close friend, Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). After a cold open which establishes (or is it a hint, or head feint at?) tragic conclusion, the movie gives us Carlito in a courtroom, enthusiastically spinning a yarn to the judge about how he’s a changed man, and will never again return to a life of crime.

Once out, Carlito reaffirms this intention to Kleinfeld. His seemingly sincere words are put to the test, though — first by his cousin, Guajiro (John Ortiz), who’s working as a runner for a local drug dealer, and then when Kleinfeld asks Carlito to take over the management of a club whose current frontman, the affably tubby Saso (Jorge Porcel), is skimming money off the top. Figuring he owes Kleinfeld his freedom, Carlito relents, but rebuffs offers of a loan. His plan: to stay clean and scrape together $75,000, which will allow him to buy in on a legitimate car rental business in the Bahamas being run by a former cellmate.

Taking in old friend Pachanga (Luis Guzmán) as a bodyguard, Carlito goes about establishing El Paraiso as a stable business — even if some of the club’s regulars are decidedly unsavory characters. One of these figures is the flashy Benny Blanco (John Leguizamo), who perhaps reminds Carlito a little too much of himself in younger days.

It’s to the movie’s atypical credit that it’s more than a full half-hour in before any hint of Carlito’s romantic regret comes into focus, in the form of ex-girlfriend Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), an aspiring actress and dancer. Carlito dumped her just before he began his prison stint, not wanting to try to continue a relationship through bars; now, of course, he has second thoughts, and wonders if she will both believe his stated plans for change and embark on a new life with him.

Based on a character created by New York State Supreme Court judge Edwin Torres, and adapted by screenwriter David Koepp, De Palma’s film takes from two books (a titular 1975 tome, but mostly 1979’s After Hours), and leans into colorfully authentic figures and dialogue to establish the guardrails of a conventional and in many ways familiar yet still grippingly told crime story.

The film’s theatrical release poster (Pacino in heavily shadowed profile, gun in hand) is something of a knowing bait-and-switch, positioning its star to comfortably inattentive consumers as another swaggering gangster. And while it’s true that there is gunplay, it’s very obvious that both the character of Carlito himself — and the inexorable pull of the consequences of both loyalty and past bad decisions — as well as Pacino’s respect for De Palma’s visual talents are at the center of the star’s interest in this material, which in lesser hands could risk coming across as shopworn.

Pacino gives a very good, grounded performance, as does Penn. In fact, the acting all around is great (Viggo Mortensen even pops up in a strikingly effective single scene cameo). But this is a case of smart, elevated craftsmanship, across the board, all clocking in and doing the work, in service of a director’s singular vision. De Palma and cinematographer Stephen Burum lead this charge, employing a range of techniques — from split diopters and evocative dutch tilts — to convey shaded dimensions of character in quiet, dialogue-driven scenes and crank up the tension of certain other segments, most notably a pool hall shootout and a subway escape sequence. Both of these could (and maybe should) still be used in film school classes today.

If Carlito’s Way is generally more melancholic and ruminative than most gangster pictures, that’s very much by design. Pacino was 53 at the time of production (four years removed from the rejuvenating career heat of neo-noir box office hit Sea of Love), and the manner in which the movie leans into his physicality — still virile and leonine, but also at times just reserved and tired — fits hand-in-glove with the themes the film aims to explore. Without giving away any big twists for those who haven’t seen it, the story here is rooted in a subversion of lawlessness and amorality. Good judgment has its limits, we learn, informed by the blinders of past experience.

Carlito’s Way comes to Ultra HD/Blu-ray in an attractive two-disc package. The movie’s 4K ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in 2160p includes original 2.0 stereo track, 5.1 DTS-HD master audio and DTS-X audio. Its blacks, particularly in a rain-soaked rooftop sequence in which a freed Carlito glimpses Gail practicing ballet across the street at night, are consistent while also avoiding shadow creep. The credibility of every frame feels intact. On a technical level, it’s hard to imagine the movie ever receiving a better home video treatment.

A number of special features are ported over from the movie’s previous DVD release. Included among these are an archival five-and-a-half minute interview with De Palma in which, among other things, the filmmaker pontificates about the decline of critical influence and acumen since the days of reviewers Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris. This segment is so entertaining in its casual insights that it almost regrettably whets one’s appetite for more recent thoughts from the director (who’s now 83, and hasn’t made a movie since 2019’s Domino, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), which don’t arrive.

That said, there are some great new interviews here, most notably with editors Bill Pankow and Kristina Boden. In a 17-minute segment, the pair (interviewed separately) share their recollections about working with De Palma, running two separate edit rooms (to better expedite a production schedule which saw a shoot beginning in March turned around for a November theatrical release), and the occupational skill of “reading” dailies, and the set-ups being utilized. Their joint perspectives are fascinating in a commingled general and granular way.

Source material author Torres sits for a new interview as well, running 12 minutes. While many of his stories are of the soft-anecdote variety (he based Carlito on a composite of three or four different criminals he knew growing up as well as defendants in his courtroom, and was first inspired to write after seeing an uninspired Anthony Quinn movie, complaining about it, and having his wife ask, “Well why don’t you do better?”), it is amusing when the segment ends with Torres reflecting on the experience of his first time screening the finished product. Recalling that he didn’t love all of it, and had some issues, Torres remembers producer Martin Bregman telling him, “Well, you got paid, right? So you love it.”

Other bonus features include an interesting three-minute look at locations from the film compared to the present-day (complete with latitudinal coordinates, for those seeking to recreate their own walking tour); a brand new audio commentary track from author Matt Zoller Seitz; a new scene-specific commentary track from Dr. Douglas Keesey; an 18-minute appreciation of the film and De Palma more broadly from film critic David Edelstein; the usual assortment of trailers and a five-minute original promotional featurette; and a very solid 35-minute making-of documentary (heavy on De Palma, Bregman, Koepp and Torres), also ported over from the movie’s DVD release, that still holds up.

Rounding things out are eight minutes of deleted scenes — the only downtick being their lack of color correction, and the fact that their sound is mixed far too low (likely a function of the degraded original elements). Most notable among these is the short tail end of a scene in which Carlito visits his old boss, Rolando (Al Israel), whom he didn’t give up during his imprisonment, and more explicitly rejects the offer of a make-good payment for his silence, telling him “charity begins at home.” This bit would’ve actually fleshed things out in an interesting way, both further defining and isolating Carlito.

To order the limited edition release — which includes more physical collectibles, including seven postcard-sized lobby card reproductions, an illustrated booklet featuring new writing on the film along with its original production notes, and a double-sided foldout poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Tom Ralston and Obviously Creative — directly from Arrow, click here.