Donnie Brasco belongs in the first tier of mobster/wise guy movies, though the extended version doesn't add (or detract) much.
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Director Sam Raimi was conspicuously absent from the recent "Spider-Man 2.1" release, and now director Mike Newell is missing on this new "Extended Version" of "Donnie Brasco. It's enough to make you think that maybe somebody at Sony is leaning on these guys to get the product out there to the buying public. You know what I'm sayin'? Fugedaboudit.
But the fact is, we don't know who authorized a version that added 20 minutes of footage--including a restaurant scene after a mob hit, domestic stuff between Donnie Brasco (a.k.a. FBI undercover agent Joseph D. Pistone) and his long-suffering wife, and Donnie walking the lion (which is not slang for going to the bathroom). Now, the film runs 147 minutes. If I knew that Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") was behind it, I'd feel better. After all, purists want to believe that they're watching the version that the director is behind. Art is both communication and expression, a negotiation between artistic vision and a sense of audience. I'd hate to see the industry shift away from the aesthetic side. After all, there's no shortage of movies to sell collectors. They don't have to keep repackaging the ones that are out there.
If you already own this film, you should know that you also already own the extras. The back of the box makes it sound as if there might be HD-exclusive content added--"Exclusive featurette, Donnie Brasco: Out from the Shadows--but if you take a look at your old version you'll see the exact same features, minus the director's commentary. It's enough to make a guy think . . . Fugedaboudit.
Let's talk about the movie. If you like "The Sopranos," you'll like "Donnie Brasco." Unlike "The Godfather," with it's high style and drama, this film, based on the book by former agent Pistone and co-author Richard Woodley, is deglamorized. Guys hang out in restaurants, go to strip clubs (bada-bing, bada boom!), and talk about things that mid-level wise guys talk about. They're not running the world. They're making a living.
Al Pacino does a great job as Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, who's been a wise guy his whole life and is obviously hurt when the younger, more virile Sonny Black (Michael Madsen) gets promoted to head the Brooklyn mob over him. With his pork-pie hat and deliberate movement, he's getting dangerously close to the "puttering" phase of life. But he's a soldier, and so he stays in step, because that's what you do. He also knows the lay of the land. When he's called in for a meeting, he thinks he's going to get whacked. Instead, this nature-loving wise guy is given a semi-tame male African lion. "What am I supposed to do with this?" he asks. And we next see him leaving the warehouse with the lion on a leash. Comic relief? Yep. And when you add moments of wry comedy to the domesticity, you get a concoction that evokes the world of Tony Soprano . . . in a retro sort of way. This 1997 film is set in the '70s, and does a pretty good job of toning it down. Too many films set in that decade seem to evoke '70s night at a bar rather than the era itself. It's really easy to go overboard, but you have to give credit to the set and costume designers for "Donnie Brasco." It's an understated film partly because of understated design.
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[release]20668[/release]