as he bats his forehead with the bottom of his shoe.
"that was my head!"
FastTimesAtRidgemontHigh
and credit to his little brother Christopher in
TheWildLife
Its Carlitos Way all the way.
And no not just cuz its one of my alltime favorite films
I've never seen anyone create such a genuinely and fascinatingly despicable character as Sean Penn did with David Kleinfeld.
During the whole movie I was reacting exactly the way Carlito himself was in witnessing Dave''s transformation from geek to gangster; mouth agape, beside myself with the question "what the fuck is happening to you?" ringing in my head like a four alarm fire.
My second choice for Sean would be Sweet and Lowdown. A lot of good actors can play an asshole that people will tend to like regardless, simply because of the character's charisma i.e. Pacino in Scent of a Woman, Jack Nicholson in As good as it gets. But few can take a TRULY unlikeable character and make the audience really care about them. Penn does that in this film.
I have not seen Mystic River yet. I thought he was great in Dead Man Walking. He was truly despicable in Casualties of War (I mean this in a good way: his personification was really evil and he played a scuzbag very realistically). I haven't seen Carlito's Way so I cannot comment on it.
He is one of the most talented actors out there, but I have seen him in at least one movie where his performance just did not work for me: I am Sam. Maybe though it was more the movie than his performance per se. It just sort of seemed contrived. For a goodly portion of the movie I just kept thinking it was Sean Penn playing a mentally disabled guy, and that the way he was playing him he came off as quite reflective and able to understand a great deal more than I think someone in the same situation would be able to. I think the movie was meant to make the audience think a lot about a certain issue, but I just felt it went too long.
No question though that he is in the same league as de Niro or Duvall. He is a great actor.
