Leave No Pistone Unturned

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2010)

Michael Corleone. Tony Montana. Carlito Brigante. All classic gangster characters brought to life by the great Al Pacino. He can add his portrayal of Benjamin 'Lefty' Ruggiero from "Donnie Brasco" to that rogue's gallery. Like a master musician, Pacino has found yet another riff on his gangster persona that is totally different from previous efforts. That's a true indication of Pacino's talent.
The film is based on the true story of how FBI Agent Joe Pistone infiltrated a New York mafia family for years under the alias of Donnie Brasco in the late 1970s and the toll it took on him and his wife and kids. Pistone/Brasco (Johnny Depp) is taken under the wing of veteran mobster Lefty Ruggiero(aka Horse Cock) played by Al Pacino and it's the touching almost father/son relationship between them that is the heart of this movie.
The script does things to the story in the book that actually hurt its credibility. In the book, Pistone could not participate in any crime or even, where possible, not be present when one was taking place. In this film though, not only do we see Agent Pistone witnessing murders, we also see him hacking up corpses for disposal and stealing $300,000 from the mob. Complete nonsense, of course. The evidence he amassed would have counted for nothing if he had done that for real. To avoid participating in crimes, Agent Pistone had to constantly advise his mafia cohorts against carrying out robberies. This made them suspicious and eventually culminated in the most tense scene in the book, strangely missing from the film. One day, some wise-guys took Pistone to a warehouse and asked him for the name and number of someone who could vouch for him. If Pistone couldn't think of one or the name didn't check out, they would kill him right there and then in the warehouse. Pistone gave them and a name and number and the mobsters went to investigate, leaving Pistone to sweat it out, knowing he could die the second they returned. Hours later, the mobsters came back to the warehouse and said Pistone's alibi checked out. Pistone had to let them see that he was not taking it lightly and lashed out at one of them. They never questioned his loyalty again. That would have made an incredible scene in this movie and I don't know why it wasn't included.
This is one Al Pacino's best performances, his Lefty can be an ice-cold killer one minute or a desperate father the next (his son is a junkie). He gives out fatherly advice to Donnie, but is also like an annoying relative. Lefty is the opposite of Mafia don Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" who was born into Mafia royalty and called the shots as the head honcho. Lefty is an older man way down the ranks of the mob who has missed his big chance and moans about it constantly. He feels disrespected by his Mafia colleagues and is drawn to Donnie Brasco as he is the only person in the film that gives him any respect.
Johnny Depp does well in the title role of Donnie Brasco/Agent Pistone and this is part of what I call his Crime Trilogy; "Public Enemies", "Blow" and "Donnie Brasco." Michael Madsen, still riding the crest of the "Reservoir Dogs" wave back in 1996 when this was made, is good as mob boss Sonny Black. Sadly, Madsen's career kind of went off the rails after this and he started doing stuff like "Species II" and the awful Bond movie "Die Another Day" and he ended up doing DTV movies mostly. Oddly, this very New York movie was directed by Brit Mike Newell and this is easily the best movie he's ever made. I would like to see him do another mob movie to see if can recapture the form he showed here.
The script by Paul Attanasio was nominated for an Oscar and it gives a top actor like Al Pacino something he can really get his teeth into and he runs with it and makes it into something special (Pacino should have been Oscar-nominated too for his work here but he wasn't). Pacino needs material of this quality again; his recent movies "88 Minutes" and "Righteous Kill" didn't really set the world on fire.
"Donnie Brasco" is an excellent mob movie that got rave reviews when it came out but is strangely forgotten about these days and never plays on TV much (possibly because it wasn't made by one of the major studios). That's a shame, as it's worth checking out if you haven't seen it.