Review of Donnie Brasco (1997) by True Dirt F — 08 Apr 2010

Donnie Brasco is a simplistic mob movie. However it is definitely a movie worth watching. I say simplistic because its a typical rat type mob movie where a cop/agent goes undercover into a mafia, makes good friends with everybody, gets stressed out, then they realize there is a rat and then there is usually only 3 conclusions to the story. 1) the agent rats them all out, they get busted, end of story 2) the agent kills main bad guy, rest of mafia gets busted, end of story 3) the mafia kills the rat/ agent, end of story. The departed is another example of a rat/agent undercover type mob movie. Despite the essential plot of the story, the film still has some unique and interesting story aspects. For instance, al pacino;s character lefty, acts like a big shot around brasco (depp) but then when he is around the rest of the mafia members he acts like a pawn and isnt treated like anything special. That whole aspect of pacino's character is a dynamic part of the story.

The cast is superb. Depp is great, Pacino is great and Madsen is great. As mentioned earlier pacino's character, lefty, has a lot of depth to him as well as inner issues. Instead of seeing pacino play a boss type character as he does in scarface, godfather etc, in donnie brasco he plays a low level mob member who is depressed in a way. Johnny Depp potrays donnie brasco perfectly.

There is plenty of suspense in donnie brasco. It is definitely a mob movie everyone should see, just don't expect it to live up to the departed.