Review of Donnie Brasco (1997) by Tom R — 04 Jul 2013

Always a surprise when a gangster movie is kinda heartbreaking (The Roaring Twenties is another). Everything about 'Lefty' is great - the gangster who's been left behind, hasn't clicked he's finished yet and stays at parties getting bitterly drunk - pacino's performance and the writing are spot on. It's overall entertaining too.

On reflection though. I didn't think any of the other characters or performances measured up. To me Michael Madsen was just doing a Sonny Corelone impression, and Johnny Depp was at sea trying to appear conflicted. Something about the direction was quite dull and predictable, much more generic than the script, which presented great potential. I kept feeling - 'if only scorcese had gotten his hands on this instead. A director like him would've injected more life and subjective spark into this' - in the end it was overly glum, and failed to fully articulate a lot of the subtle emotions bobbing around on the surface of the story.