Donnie Brasco (1997)
Directed by Mike Newell

Film Review

The real-life experiences of an undercover FBI agent are vividly retold in this tense and compelling thriller from Mike Newell, the director who previously had a box office smash with his romantic-comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).  Regarded by some as the best gangster film since The Godfather: Part II (1974), Donnie Brasco offers not only a gripping story that is powerfully evocative of the era and milieu in which it is set, but some extraordinary performances from its two lead actors, Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, who are both at their absolute best as a disillusioned hard-bitten hoodlum and the undercover cop who falls under his spell.  The film is closely based on Pistone's 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, and the fact that Pistone was a consultant on the film (working closely with Pacino and Depp to define their characters) can only add to its blistering authenticity.

Donnie Brasco is far more than your run-of-the-mill gangster film.  The central story idea about an inexperienced cop who undergoes a personality change through his exposure to hardened criminals is hardly an original one.  What the film is really about is the moral conflict which its protagonist ultimately has to deal with when he is forced to choose between his professional duties and his emotional attachment to a mobster he has grown to like and respect.  Is it possible for any man to stand by and allow someone he has befriended be executed, even in the line of duty?  Pacino's character is far from sympathetic - repeatedly he shows himself to be a seasoned killer with no scruples when it comes to protecting himself and his kind - but we are compelled to feel for him as Depp's undercover FBI agent slips off his moral pedestal and allows him to be murdered, selling his soul for a derisory monetary reward and a token gold disk.

Prior to Donnie Brasco, Johnny Depp's acting career had been a somewhat hit and miss affair.  Depp's determination to shake off his teen idol image led him to make some bizarre choices of roles, and a fair number of misfires was perhaps inevitable.  Donnie Brasco was the film which convinced the world that he was genuinely a great film actor, and it seems fitting that this revelation should come about through his pairing with Al Pacino, a living legend whose acting abilities are beyond dispute.  A great actor isn't just one who can convincingly take on another persona; more crucially, it is someone who can draw us into his character's soul and make us feel the anxieties and torments that make the character real, someone we have no choice but to engage with, whether he is a saint or a psychopath.  As they perform alongside one another in Donnie Brasco, Pacino and Depp leave us in no doubt that they are two of the finest in their trade.

It is hard to know which is more moving - the blind trust that Pacino's Ruggiero places in Depp's Brasco, treating him more like a son than a criminal partner (having swallowed the cop's lies hook, line and sinker), or the crisis of conscience that begins to overtake Depp's character when he realises what he has got himself into.  Mike Newell's gritty mise-en-scène has much to commend it (as do the screenwriting and photography), but what makes this a particularly moving and satisfying film is the intense humanity that Pacino and Depp invest in their portrayals.  The truly great gangster films are not about blood and bullets; they are about human beings coming to terms with the cost of the choices they have made in their lives, whilst reminding us that there are no absolutes in morality.  Is it possible to regard Pistone as a hero once he has told his story?  Does he even expect to be seen as a hero?  A man who betrays his friend has many sleepless nights ahead of him.  Such a man is to be pitied, not revered.

Film Synopsis

In 1978, FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone is assigned his most dangerous mission: to infiltrate the Bonanno family, one of New York's most feared gangster clans.  Posing as a crack diamond thief and assuming the name Donnie Brasco, Pistone soon gains the confidence of low-ranking gang member Lefty Ruggiero, who vouches for him and comes to regard him as his own son.  Lefty is the weakest link in the Bonanno mob organisation, an ageing hitman who has a son dying from drug addiction and a grudge against his superiors for repeatedly passing him over for promotion.  As he gradually gains the approval of the other gang members, Pistone becomes more like them, a transformation that is noticed by his wife, from whom he becomes increasingly estranged.  Pistone is soon drawn in so deeply that his main worry is not that his cover will be blown, but that he will be caught in the crossfire as the Bonannos go to war with a rival gang...