Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

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.

really awful... lead actor did OK... the film, plot etc was completely crap and inaccurate it may as well have been a sequel to well... anything it had little or no relevance to Carlitos Way... and should be avoided like the plague by any Carlito's ways fans... no mention of Gail in fact he ends up with some other bird, no mention of Klienfelt, no mention of how he got caught, no mention of how he ended up in jail... they attempted to make it like the original with flash backs at the beginning... but to be honest when rating it I was looking for a zero mark... unfortunately I had to rate it higher...Its a terrible attempt to cash in on what was one of the best films of the 90's... overall it was approximately £6 and 2 hours of my life wasted... for all the "action" in it, it was truly boring slow and predictable... again to any Carltio's Way fans avoid this fiasco...

The movie wasn't bad. This comment isn't for people who haven't seen the movie, its for people who didn't understand the movie, like a number of the people commenting this board.The movie is called "Carlito's Way: RISE TO POWER," hence why it displayed him rising to power. Had it been called something like, "Carlito's Way: Rise to Power and The His Arrest," or something to that extent I Would have been disappointed in the lack of jail time at the end of the movie too.This movie did just what it had planned to do, it showed Carlito's Rise to Power which involved pushing heroin, dealing with Nicky, dating Leticia, and his involvement with the Italians. Basically, him rising to power, and gaining his immense wealth. That's the movie. It's a prequel because it comes before Carlito's Way, the sequel.It obviously didn't tell of his relationship with Gail, or what put him in jail. Perhaps that's for a story of another movie. Say Carlito is in his late 20s to early 30s, I don't know his age, and then say he's in his late 40s when played by Al Pacino. Therefore there's still about 15 years unexplained if not more. I can't recall how many years he was in jail before "Carlito's Way" but if it was less than ten they'd have to skip around 5 years at the end of "Rise to Power" to get to him being put in jail. That would have confused you even more.If you happen to think that a prequel MUST lead up to a sequel, you'd be incorrect. One of the most popular sagas of all time shows you this. In Star Wars Episode 1, Anakin is a child, next thing you know he's a grown man. What happened in between? How was puberty for a Jedi? All the questions in between are unanswered, whether you ask them or not. The prequel did not simply lead you through every second until the sequel. Episode 3 is the prequel to Episode 4, but Luke's entire life is unanswered. Doesn't make Episode 3 a horrible prequel does it?If you want, make up your own "Carlito's Way: Downfall," I don't care, but don't say it was a horrible movie. It was a well done movie and well acted. It showed you a portion of Carlito's life you hadn't seen before. If you can't get over the fact that they didn't lead up to his arrest, then you're missing out on a good movie for a dumb reason.

This movie had potential and I was willing to give it a try but there are so many timeline problems that are so obvious - it's hard to swallow being treated like such an idiot.Rise to Power is set in the late sixties. Carlito's Way is set in the mid to late seventies. For this movie to be realistic, it would have to be set in the fifties, if not the late forties.Rise to Power has no sign of Gail (Pennelope Ann Miller), no sign of Kleinfeld, no sign of Rolando that Carlito supposedly ran with in his "hey-day". None of the primary characters in the original film were in this movie. We're supposed to believe that Carlito met all these people in the span of a few years.Rise to Power ends with Carlito walking down the beach talking about retiring in paradise which is what he wanted to do in the original film. Also, the pre-quel creates the Rocco and Earl characters - what's supposed to happen with them since they are clearly not in Carlito's Way? It's also hard to understand how Carlito could have the relationship with the Italians he has in the original film watching the events of Rise to Power. Where are the Taglialucci's in this film? There is probably seven years between the two films and he spends five of them in prison. It's like trying to put a square plug into a round hole.It is obvious that no one was interested in telling a good story and that they were more interested in making some bucks by making an average gangster film and throwing a character called Carlito Brigante into the story. The film had some good moments but I think they would have been better off leaving this movie to stand by itself instead of trying to make it a prequel to Carlito's Way.If you feel determined to see this movie, the only advice I can give is to not think of the movie as a linear pre-quel. Think of it like the spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood's man with no name, in other words two movies that have the same character but aren't necessarily connected with each other.