Cady's Take:

Adopting the persona of Donnie Brasco (Depp), a jewel broker, is taken under the wing of Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino). Lefty Ruggiero is an aging, two-bit hit man who sees a new future for himself with the smart, young thief Donnie Brasco and enlists him as his protégé. Pacino presents Lefty as a tragic, and at times pathetic, character who earns our pity and understanding, if not our sympathy. Although Pacino has starred in numerous Mafia and crime films before, he's never played a character like this one.

Donnie/Joe is trapped between his flagging devotion to his real family and concomitant deception of his surrogate one. As the infiltration progresses, Donnie becomes more like a son to Leftie than his own junkie offspring. The closer they get, the more they begin to resemble each other. Pistone's work ultimately begins to affect him, and almost brings his relationship with his wife (Anne Heche) to ruin. Gone for weeks at a time and unable to talk about what he does, there was no way he could be an effective husband or father to his three daughters. When his wife angrily tells him that he's becoming like one of the mob, he replies, "I'm not becoming like them. I am them."

Pistone (who's now living under an assumed name and who still has a half-million-dollar contract on his head) acknowledges the toll his job took on his wife and daughters but says that he has no regrets about what he did.

The story is gripping, the characters are memorable and the dialogue is consistently interesting. The mob stereotypes you expect to see are not present. It's rock solid moviemaking.

First I would like to point out that the screenplay for “Donnie Brasco” was written by Paul Attanasio, who was instrumental in a show called “Homicide: Life on the Street.” Anyone who has seen the show will appreciate how good “Donnie Brasco” must be. This is a great mob movie with a lot of heart and a great deal of thought. There are the obligatory scenes of violence, however they are not gratuitous and the movie does not overdo them.

Al Pacino plays Lefty, a “spoke in the wheel” of the Mafia. Lefty is not high up in the chain of command, or even particularly respected, and he is certainly down on his luck, but we get the feeling that he is generally well liked. He then meets Donnie (Depp) and takes him under his wing. Unfortunately for Lefty, Donnie is really Joe Pistone, an FBI agent looking to infiltrate the mob. Unfortunately for Joe’s wife (Anne Heche) Joe seems to be enjoying being Donnie. In fact, his wife and kids see less and less of him as he goes deeper undercover.

The details of the plot are unimportant for the sake of reviewing the movie, since it is the performances of Pacino and Depp that make this movie (based on a true story) so affecting. Pacino’s Lefty needs Donnie to feel important; he teaches him things about the mob life and comes to love him as a son. Donnie is swept up in the lifestyle, and the movie does a nice job illustrating the cop/criminal dichotomy. It is a fine line between the law and the lawbreakers and Donnie/Joe moves swiftly back and forth over that line. The relationship between Donnie and Lefty is really the centerpiece of the film and a lovely one at that.