Donnie Brasco
Director: Mike Newell
It’s all very well to be fighting for your life against space itself, or risking it by poking your journalistic nose where some would argue it doesn’t belong, or being unceremoniously carried to the clink… but how about walking straight into the Mafia and becoming one of them? That takes some real, well… guts.
And that’s exactly what family man and FBI agent Joe Pistone did in September 1976, when he went undercover into the Bonanno crime family as “Donnie Brasco.” So effective was he during the six-year operation that were he willing to commit murder, he would be inducted into the Mafia as a “made” man.
Unfortunately for Pistone and his family (as in wife and children), the toll exacted was remarkable: given the depth of his cover and intensity of his relationship with his “wise guy mentor” Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggerio, lines of allegiance blurred, alarming conflicts of interest evolved, black and white melted to grey, and the degree of difficulty in completing his mission escalated to levels Pistone himself never envisioned.
Our hero ever one wrong move away from certain execution, Donnie Brasco gives us an inside look into what it takes to do what these folks do to keep us safe.
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