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Review of the movie "Donnie Brasco"

Sun Jun 15 2025

A Quiet Masterpiece of Friendship: A Gangster and an FBI Mole

Al Pacino as a gangster? His career had been on a downward trajectory for a quarter of a century. He assumed the highest criminal authority in “The Godfather.” He was an imposter who noisily snatched it from the hands of others in “Scarface.” He tried to get off the crooked path in “Carlito’s Way.” In “Donnie Brasco,” it’s all more frightening and banal: Al Pacino is an aging fighter from the nearest corner, nicknamed Lefty, a man who needs a friend. He finds this friend in the face of an undercover agent, played by Depp.

The plot brings “Donnie Brasco” closer to another immortal work of the criminal genre, Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” but this similarity, although it lies on the surface, is not striking. Because the flashy told and pretentiously filmed “Goodfellas” against the quiet “Donnie Brasco” is like a rich playboy uncle against a poor student nephew – it’s pointless to compare. “Donnie Brasco” is primarily a social competition between two brilliant actors: Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. Moreover, the elder, of course, looks preferable, if only because you know how many times he had to pull the strap of a movie criminal: appreciate the breadth of professional opportunities – from boss to “six,” and always with constant success.

This extra-plot collision, coupled with a schizophrenic plot – in the course of the film, a young man from the FBI becomes a very real gangster – distracts from the fact that “Donnie Brasco” was filmed not by some New Yorker familiar with the rules of conduct in “Hell’s Kitchen,” but by a respectable English gentleman, the director of the hit “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” Mike Newell. He was given a task no easier than that of Agent Pistone. To convincingly portray Scorsese, to make Al Pacino dance. Well, what can I say? He coped with the undercover work. In England, director Newell will now only be seen on the set of the fourth “Harry Potter.”