Carlito's Way: Rise to Power stars Jay Hernandez as Carlito Brigante, and chronicles Brigante's rise as a heroin drug czar in 1960s Harlem, New York. The film also features Mario Van Peebles, Michael Joseph Kelly, Luis Guzmán, Jaclyn DeSantis, Sean Combs, Burt Young, and Domenick Lombardozzi. Critically panned, the film nevertheless received Torres's as an accurate adaptation of the first half of his novel. The story begins in the 1960s with three inmates in a New York prison — Earl (Van Peebles), Rocco (Kelly), and Carlito (Hernandez) — controlling their criminal empire within their cell. Upon their release, they all look to control the drug
Al Pacino nominated for Best Supporting Actor for "Glengarry Glen Ross", making Pacino the first male actor ever to receive two acting nominations for two movies in the same year, and to win for the lead role. Pacino starred alongside Sean Penn in the crime drama "Carlito's Way" in 1993, in which he portrayed a gangster released from prison with the help of his lawyer (Penn) and vows to go straight. Pacino starred in Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995), in which he and Robert De Niro appeared on-screen together for the first time (though both Pacino and De Niro starred in "The Godfather