For this year, I’m going with the reminder of the fractured phrase: Hooray for Hollyweird! Most of us love movies and I enjoy recommending what you should watch on any given day. So, Hooray for Hollyweird … and for today’s recommendation, let’s check out “Donnie Brasco,” which is the story of a true-life FBI agent who infiltrated the mob and almost became a “made man” in the Mafia.
“Donnie Brasco” stars the best actor of gangsters of them all: Al Pacino. He edges out Robert De Niro and both portrayed “Don Vito Corleone.” The co-star and focus of the film is Johnny Depp, who plays Joe Pistone, the agent who infiltrated the mob. Depp, like Pacino, obviously immersed himself in the character and has to fight within the mob “families” as well as his own real family.
The story is that the FBI set out to infiltrate the mob through the fictionalized “Donny Brasco.” Pistone starts hanging out in places where mob guys hang out and is found to have knowledge about jewels and jewelry. Finally, he meets the character played by Pacino, who becomes his mentor in the mob and fills him in on all the news in the mob.
Depp’s character keeps moving up and is on the verge of becoming “made” in the mob when the FBI asks itself it really wants to go that far. Along the way, Depp’s character has to deal with the tensions at home that being such an undercover operative brings: projecting a different personality because he is more often “Donnie Brasco” than he is Joe Pistone.
However, remember that “Donnie Brasco” isn’t a documentary. Some facts are mangled into different situations (such as the denouement for Pacino), so don’t take this as a detailed telling of the actual story.
Pacino and Depp are great and the supporting cast of Michael Madsen as Pacino’s boss and the late Anne Heche as Depp’s longsuffering wife is solid, too.
It’s a streaming world, so go find “Donnie Brasco” … and then you’ll definitely say … “Hooray for Hollyweird!”
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