A surprisingly compelling adaptation of a true story

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2005)

I had somewhat high hopes for this movie, but ended up amazed at how scene after scene turned out to be totally engrossing. Johnny Depp was mesmerizing and Al Pacino gave perhaps the most understated performance of his career. I've recently seen Goodfellas, and comparisons are unavoidable; they're both masterpieces but have very different characters. Goodfellas is vintage Scorsese; if there was a film he was born to make, this was it. Donnie Brasco, on the other hand, tells the by-now-familiar story of the tensions felt by the FBI Mafia infiltrator: the fear that his cover will be blown, the sense of abandonment by his family as they cope with his absence, and, most of all, a sense of identification with the group he is trying to send to prison. We've seen this before: Wiseguy (the TV series) played similar tunes (even having a central mobster named Sonny). More recently, The Sopranos tells as part of its sheaf of stories that of a mobster rat. I'm not as crazy about Michael Madsen's performance as other reviewers have been, and Ann Heche as Mrs. Pistone didn't do much for me. But the decidedly unglamorous portrayal of mobster life as lived by Lefty (Pacino's character) was wonderfully nuanced and detailed: his taste in clothes, his character's essential stupidity (cross-played with an almost animal instinct that doesn't always serve him well), and his tragic grief at his son's fate don't have any false notes in them.
I could, by now, get sick of Mafia flicks. After awhile, they rely on the same stereotypes of no trust, sudden violence, borderline or downright psychopathic personalities, and power games. But the performances and constant state of tension in this one made it very rewarding.