Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino), a Nuyorican criminal, vows to go straight and retire in Paradise, but his criminal past proves difficult to escape. After serving five years of a thirty-year prison sentence, Carlito is freed on a legal technicality that has been exploited by his close friend and lawyer Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). As Carlito tries to leave his life of crime behind, he is pulled back into the New York City underworld through a series of violent confrontations.