[A] powerful Mafia genre film with impressive star leads and emotional punch.
Comment
01/01/00
Donnie Brasco (1997)
87
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:52
Fresh:45
Rotten:7
Average Rating:7.8/10
Consensus: A stark, nuanced portrait of life in organized crime, bolstered by strong performances from Al Pacino and Johnny Depp.
Synopsis: Joe Pistone (Johnny Depp) is an FBI mole who integrates himself into the Mafia pecking order by posing as "jewel man" Donnie Brasco. He finds his loyalties divided when Lefty Ruggiero, a jaded hit... [More]
Reviews for Donnie Brasco
Top CriticOne fine little character study about crime, friendship and loyalty in gangland New York City.
01/01/00
Donnie Brasco is a fine movie but it might just be best remembered as Johnny Depp's coming-out party. A star -- check that, an actor -- is born.
01/08/05
At 34, Depp has finally scored a film that doesn't ask him to play down his intelligence.
01/01/00
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01/01/00
It's hard to develop any sympathy for the film's nasty manipulative humans, despite the best efforts of all involved in this newest slant on the mean-streets crowd.
06/05/02
It's tempting to think Pacino stopped trying sometime in the mid-1980s. But watch Lefty's elegiac final scene and you might conclude that it's not Al's ability that's dimmed, rather it's the imagination of casting directors that's grown stale.
06/20/09
The movie has many human qualities and contains what will be remembered as one of Pacino's finest scenes.
01/01/00
Top CriticIn almost every respect, Donnie Brasco is an original, the unexpected rebirth of an old and oft-told tale.
10/15/02
Two powerful performances and a glimpse at the inner workings of the lower levels of the mob make this a must see.
01/01/00
The performances are terrific, especially Pacino. But when has he not been? But here he's even better than usual, even showing a vulnerable side that is almost heartbreaking.
01/01/00
You get something far richer, if more unsettling, here than conventional crime drama's romanticism and easy analogies.
01/01/00
[Pacino's] turn as a low-level mobster is his most relaxed and charming work in years.
01/01/00
[Newell and Attanasio] pay as much attention to emotional details as to the clockwork details of mob life.
07/30/07
Pacino's outstanding work elevates this to the crime movie pantheon.
01/01/00
Top CriticThe humor and tragedy that Pacino and Depp put on the screen will stay with you.
04/17/02
A pleasant surprise.
01/01/00
Tarnishes the shiny veneer of the mob we've seen in earlier movies, holding up its players not as criminal heroes but as cogs in a criminal machine, more worthy of compassion than cheers.
01/01/00
Just misses ranking in the upper echelon of mob movies.
05/09/07
In the tired figure of Lefty, manifest in the craggy icon of Pacino, our sympathies are definitely enlisted, and the theme rings a poignant note.
04/12/02
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