First off, let me just say I think this is a fantastic film. Pacino at his best, and with a curly haired afro man in Sean Penn beating fools with a crowbar in the river how can you go wrong? But that is not the point of this review. I think we all universally accept Carlito's Way as a good movie, but what is with this Ultimate Edition stuff?
Last year Universal released Scarface with an Special Edition and I ate it up. It had brand new features and documentaries and everything that makes it worthy of the title "Special Edition," but with Carlito's Way it seems there just wasn't enough on the shelf to warrant this release.
Being the third time Carlito's Way has made it to DVD you would think there would be something other than a snazzy silver cover to get us excited, but there really isn't enough to encourage those that already own the title to put out even more money.
Repeating from the earlier Collector's Edition release you get the original production featurette, trailers, a poster gallery and a 34-minute featurette going into the making of the film. While this final feature is a repeat it is worth the view so if you own the Collector's Edition or are buying this one, watch it. Pacino and Penn aren't in it, but it is still worth the watch.
What is new to this edition is the featurette titled "Brian De Palma on Carlito's Way". This bad boy is short but cool as you will listen to De Palma criticize recent films for their inability to tap into realism. He comments that they all simply regurgitate what they have already seen in other movies or on TV, comments like this really have me looking forward to his next feature, The Black Dahlia, which should be released sometime next year.
My real beef with this DVD is that there is absolutely no commentary track and it is one of those double-sided DVDs; movie on one side, features on the other. This is a money saving technique that pisses me off something fierce. While the reason it must have been done was because of the inclusion of a DTS track for the film, but I will tell you it isn't worth the hassle, not to mention the review copy I received didn't play well at all, as it paused no less than 10 times, about 20 seconds each time, during the final minutes of the film. Release a two-disc edition for God's sake, it won't cost you much more! Even if it does, at least you won't look cheap.
Overall, I could go either way on this one, there really are only a couple of ways to look at it. If you already own the Collector's Edition don't even bother with this one, and if you don't you may still want to skip the Ultimate and pick-up the Collector's. I am not sure if the Collector's Edition is on a double-sided disc, but most likely it will be a little bit cheaper.