Here's a couple of three things to know about Carlito's Way.

Edwin Torres wrote two books about the Puerto Rican gangster life in '70's NYC, Carlito's Way, and its sequel, After Hours.

The movie Carlito's Way, the classic with Pacino and Penn, is based on the sequel novel, After Hours.

The straight to video "Rise To Power", that came out a few years after Carlito's Way, is based on the first novel, titled Carlito's Way.

Torres, author of the original novels, has praised Rise to Power because it follows the novel accurately, you just have to bear with the cheap production and bad acting.

"...the successful annihilation of organized crime's subculture in America would rock the 'legitimate' world's foundation, which would ultimately force fundamental social changes and redistributions of wealth and power in this country. Meyer Lansky's dream was to bond the two worlds together so that one could not survive without the other." - Dan E. Moldea