You know what we do when we find that rat, right, Lefty?

Rating: 8/10 (19 September 2009)

Joe Pistone is an undercover FBI agent assigned to infiltrate the mob as Donnie Brasco. Making friends with Lefty Ruggiero, both men soon strike up a warm father and son like relationship. A relationship that as longs as it runs for, is likely to get them, or someone they love, killed.
Directed by Mike Newell and starring Johnny Depp {Brasco} and Al Pacino {Lefty}, Donnie Brasco is adapted from the true story novel written by Pistone himself called My Undercover Life In The Mafia. Choosing not to go the operatic Scorsese way with a Mafia topic, Newell instead goes for a sort of grim realism, something that in an oxymoron way makes this one of the freshest "Gangster" pictures of the modern era.
Tho this is very much an actors piece {both Depp and Pacino deliver royally good and complimentary performances}, the credit to Brasco's quality should probably go to Paul Attanasio and his screenplay. Choosing to make it a tight character study over violent bravado histrionics, Attanasio's adaption could never stand charge of glamorising the thugs. Sure there's violence, and the usual array of wise-guy nastiness dots its way throughout the piece. But it's the central relationship between Donnie and Lefty, that coupled with the strain evident on Pistone's home life, that keeps the film afloat.
Of course there is the obvious problem of knowing that our intrepid undercover agent could pull out at any time, so in that where does Newell and Attanasio gain their tension and sense of danger from? We know Pistone lives, he wrote the book and told the tale, so with a slight trick of the hand, the makers make us wonder who else is going to be in the pain zone here. And this includes Lefty since his bond {and vouching for} with Brasco is tender, perhaps even sad? Thus lifting him away from your stereotypical movie gangster. Perhaps Pistone's family will suffer? The marriage is crumbling as Donnie goes deeper, is there a sting in the tail coming there? And on it goes, we may just be following these two guys on their path to reckoning {the film does suffer when they are not together on screen}, but the tension and wondering is palpable in the extreme.
With a fine supporting cast of Michael Madsen, James Russo, Brunno Kirby and the badly formed Anne Heche, the film is served well in the acting department. But you can forget about any sort of exhilaration here, this is a cold tale told with skill and acted accordingly. Hmm, I wonder what Marty made of it? 8/10