Not such a wise guy

Donnie Brasco

I detest the mob genre of film, so I sat down to watch this film with a jaundiced eye. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Donnie Brasco, directed by Mike Newell, is based on real life FBI agent Joe Pistone's book ``Donnie Brasco: My undercover life in the Mafia''. This gives it a reality and complexity other mob films sadly lack. Newell (who directed ``Into the West'') has, to his credit, broken all the conventions of gangster films by looking at the vulnerable and human aspects of the main players.

Donnie Brasco is about two men caught in a conflict of loyalties. One, Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp), is an FBI agent who takes on the persona of a mobster to infiltrate the New York mafia; the other is Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino), an ageing, hard-bitten, mafia foot soldier who craves a respect he has not gained in the mafia hierarchy.

Pacino is brilliant in his role as Lefty - echoes of Lt. Colonel Frank Slade, Pacino's character in ``Scent of a Woman'', were in the back of my mind throughout the film.

Lefty Ruggiero is not a bigger-than-life, in-control, hard man; he is just a beaten-down hood, whose very existence expresses the hypocrisy and absurdity of the gangster mythology. Indeed, it is Lefty's vulnerabilty which leads him to trust Brasco, in whom he thinks he has found someone to give him the respect and acknowledgement he needs. He in return will give Brasco pointers on how to survive mob life in which fear is the only guarantee of loyalty.

This is a very different role to anything Depp has played before, and I feel it shows - his performance is a bit hollow.

Brasco becomes Lefty's protégé, which couples their fates closely together, especially when Lefty vouches for Donnie, which, by the rules of the mob, means he takes direct responsibility for Brasco's actions. Brasco's world is now no longer clear cut; success in his FBI work means death for this enemy he has grown emotionally close to.

The use of violence in the film was interesting, with a reversal of the normal use of brutality in gangster films. The story was punctuated by very vicious and brutal scenes, but these were valid and used well to bring us back from the character-based story line to what was the crux of the film: that the bottom line of the mafia culture is fear, intimidation and sadism. In other mob films you try and work out the story line between the action.

There are other relationships explored, most importantly that of Brasco and his wife (Anne Heche) who spends every day her husband is under cover not knowing if he is alive or dead, and who is unable to explain to her children where their father is and what he is doing. These counterpoint relationships were largely peripheral to the main story.

Those involved in this production deserve credit for their fresh insight into the price that is paid for being a wiseguy.

By Danny McKeown