WATCH NOW
Donnie Brasco
The hero in this film is really a cop who pretends to join the Mob to get otherwise unavailable evidence. “Brasco” happens to be the assumed name of real-life F.B.I. agent Joseph Pistone, whose book provided the basis for this superb screenplay by Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show).
The serious Mob movie has become notoriously violent, especially in recent Martin Scorsese efforts (Casino, Goodfellas), and this one also pushes the envelope via special effects (close-ups of gunshots to the head, butchering of corpses). But Attanasio and British director Mike Newell go beyond that to themes like friendship, ambition, family tensions, loyalty and betrayal.
Newell (Into the West, Enchanted April) claims the movie is not about gangsters but about a faithful worker who is terminally downsized. That would be Al Pacino, who gets into the heart and soul of Lefty, a veteran hoodlum who mentors Pistone (Johnny Depp).
Lefty’s own son is a drug addict, and Pistone as Brasco clearly bonds with the older man as a symbolic substitute. Pacino and Depp go beyond poignance to give their anguish the heft of tragedy.
Another major stress for Pistone is his own family. He has a wife and three daughters he rarely sees. Newcomer Anne Heche is the loving wife who helplessly watches her husband dissolving into his criminal role. “I’m not becoming like them,” he admits. “I am them.”
Donnie B encourages us to ponder the miserable ambiguity of the life of the cover agent, who achieves great social good at deep personal cost. But its real drama is about the vagaries of human love and whom we discover to be our brother. Pacino and Depp are, frankly, a terrific pair.
For more movies like Donnie Brasco (1997) visit Hurawatch.
Also watch: