A Good Look At Behind The Scenes Life In The Mob

Rating: 7/10 (18 December 2010)

"Donnie Brasco" is the name assigned to an undercover FBI agent who's assigned the task of infiltrating the New York mafia and ends up getting farther than anyone ever thought he would manage. Johnny Depp was quite good in the role - one of the few "straight roles" that I've seen him in, as opposed to the quirky style of character he usually seems to play. Depp had to play his character in two different settings - one as Brasco, the young mobster seeking to work his way up through the mob, and then as FBI agent Joe Pistone, who finds his mob life overtaking his personal life, to the point at which his marriage and family almost break apart under the strain. It was a fine piece of work by Depp, showing the character becoming almost overtaken by his mob persona, and steadily rising within the family to a level not even the FBI expected.
Al Pacino was the perfect partner for Depp in this. I don't think anyone could play the role of "Lefty" - a "middle management" mob type as well as Pacino. Lefty is a frustrated mobster, unable to advance in spite of many years of service, who recruits Brasco and then finds himself overtaken by the young newcomer to the "family." Pacino was completely believable in the role, as you would expect from such an accomplished actor. Depp and Pacino were teamed with a pretty solid supporting cast, the most notable of them being probably Anne Heche as Joe's long- suffering wife Maggie.
The biggest weakness in this was probably some poor pacing and structure in the first hour or so. It didn't seem to be fitting together all that well, and it actually seemed to start too abruptly, with Lefty trying to sell Brasco a diamond. How did Brasco get into that position in the first place? I wondered that all the way through. How did his undercover work begin? There also seemed to be a number of points at which Brasco should have been found out, but wasn't. Those points aside, though, this was a very entertaining movie.