Carlito's Way

In a radical departure from his usual literary fare, Patrick Doyle scored this gangster film starring Al Pacino. Unlike, say, Henry V, this takes a much more gentle main theme. It is a very elegiac and subtle, but hauntingly beautiful melody mostly performed on strings and introduced in the opening track. Where his later effort for Donnie Brasco seemed a fraction aimless at times, Doyle keeps the ball rolling much better in this effort. Each track offers something new, such as the sultry jazz in Laline and Where's My Cheesecake (hmmm, interesting track names). It also has a fair share of action as well. You're Over Man introduces a rolling piano figure that ends up sounding a little more bizarre due to the inclusion of a few synth noises as well as some other piano plonking.

The main action cues are There's An Angle Here and Grand Central. These are possibly the only two cues that actually seem to sound like other film music (which is generally unusual for Doyle). Both tracks are built on a repeated ostinato figure that goes through quite a few contortions much like Jerry Goldsmith would. It seems to function equally well as a suspense motif as well as a full blown action motif. The first track is mostly suspense, with sections that, it would seem, Danny Elfman owes a debt to for his suspense music in Mission: Impossible with clipped snare motifs as well as mid to high range piano plunking. Grand Central starts with an explosive, full orchestral version of the motif, thus transforming into an exciting action cue. The motif is built over urgent rhythms for much of the track. Through the entire ten minutes, there are second gaps which sound like the end of one cue and the start of another. Maybe it would have been prudent to divide the cue up a little, but that's really a minor point. The score finishes with another elegant track for strings and is quite a relief after the almost none-stop action and suspense.

All in all, an excellent score that perfectly displays Doyle as one of the major talents of modern film scoring. It would seem that Varese are very good at producing Doyle scores as this is yet another score that is perfectly long enough and seems to contain all the important parts of the score and thus makes the entire thing thoroughly recommended.