A solid gangster movie allegedly based on fact.

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2005)

A very entertaining movie. But I am unsure whether the things I find entertaining about it were deliberate or unintentional.
For a start, there's Pacino's character. All the way through the show I could not help thinking that he was parodying his own gangster clichés, speech, body language, etc. A self-parody in fact. Or was that unintentional.
Then the "gags". For example, when Depp and Pacino sneak along the quayside and depp hears the click of Pacino's gun behind him and stops suddenly. This for me has a slap-stick quality about it and actually made me laugh. Was this deliberate or what?
The man with the "voice-box" is a walk-on cliché. Surely an intentional gag. Or was it?
Michael Madsen, by comparison to Pacino, just plays out his one-role cliché style of "acting" that is certainly not self-parody but is totally risible. Are we meant to laugh at his stereotyped performance?
Then the Mormon FBI boss. Certainly his objection to swearing is a clever way of conveying his small mindedness. But it is also blackly comic.
Then there is the serious aspect of the film. The scene in the counsellors office is hilarious. But it also brings home the irony of the Depp character's position. The more he adopts the "mask" of his mob persona, in fact the more real a person he actually becomes. This was, for me, the most intriguing aspect of the story ( as it is told in this version ). However, it is not developed in any systematic way.
The more Depp's character falls out of the family-man role the more I found myself disliking his wife. She chose to marry an FBI agent, then crucifies him for doing the job. Is it any wonder if he flies into the quasi-homosexual emotional bond that develops between him and "Lefty".
This is of course the bottom-line of the story ( no pun intended ). How loyalty and an emotional tie can develop even towards someone who, frankly, is as bad a serial murdering thug as any of them in the movie. In spite of what we know about him, such as his admission to involvement in killing at least 26 of his "buddies" in the mob, the scene where it comes to his turn to take the walk and he strips off his meagre jewellery,depositing his bits in a drawer with a five buck bill, is still very moving.
Depp emotes very understatedly in the last scene, expressing silently his disgust at the paltry medal and five hundred dollar cheque that were the pay-off for a mans life.