How does Carlito's Way rank among the classic mafia movies?

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Originally Posted by wilky61

I haven't seen it in awhile, but Donnie Brasco left me thinking "Aw man, not another movie where the cop's/gangster's married to his job instead of his family." IMO, too many gangster movies revolve around this theme (e.g., Heat also) and the genre seems bloated...

The scenes with Brasco's wife and family are definitely the weakest scenes in the movie, but in my opinion it doesn't harm the film, since the scenes with the gangsters are so interesting and compelling.

Most gangster films don't revolve around the theme you mentioned, when considering the genre as a whole. (That theme mostly shows up in dramas about cops.) Most have to do with the criminal who rises from rags to riches and then falls back to rags again (or, more likely, dies). Usually they pay at the end of the movie for the Faustian deal they made. Think of all those movies from Warner Bros. from the 30s, for example, or the Film Noir films of the 40s and 50s. Even Goodfellas follows that trajectory. The Godfather is an exception, but that's because it's more operatic and Shakespearean in many ways, like those plays about Kings and Queens who commit murder in order to hold on to their power.