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Review and Comparison with the film Donnie Brasco (starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino)
Donnie Brasco is the true story of Joseph D. Pistone's undercover investigation into the Mafia. From the very beginning, fighting against the FBI's inexperience with undercover operations and lack of guidelines, tackling the fences that supply the Mafia to the very highest echelons of the families that run New York City's underground crime scene. Pistone, who now lives under an assumed identity, recounts tales of being noticed, becoming accepted, meeting connections, getting respect, living the life, whilst never forgetting who he worked for and what his mission was: to gather evidence for future court cases.
In comparison to the film, the book tells all of Pistone's work in chronological order from his own perspective. The film employs the best aspects into a compact space, it steals an incident here and a confrontation there, but alongside the full account it feels rushed and the story forced. Whilst everything you read here is true, and led to over 100 convictions of real-life Mafia wiseguys and associates, it never feels overly dramatised or exaggerated. Nor does it read like an FBI report, a series of this-happened-that-happened anecdotes. It flows with enthralling detail and recounts six years in which an agent becomes so absorbed into Mafia culture that it was expected "Donnie Brasco" would be put forward to become a made guy whilst still undercover, something never before seen in the mob's history.
Whether you like undercover agents, the inner-workings of the Mafia or perhaps you just enjoyed the film, this book won't disappoint. From start to finish it's a fascinating account of a truly remarkable investigation, a story as entertaining as it is insightful, in short; too much for Hollywood to cope with.
Written by Jay
Donnie Brasco is the true story of Joseph D. Pistone's undercover investigation into the Mafia. From the very beginning, fighting against the FBI's inexperience with undercover operations and lack of guidelines, tackling the fences that supply the Mafia to the very highest echelons of the families that run New York City's underground crime scene. Pistone, who now lives under an assumed identity, recounts tales of being noticed, becoming accepted, meeting connections, getting respect, living the life, whilst never forgetting who he worked for and what his mission was: to gather evidence for future court cases.
In comparison to the film, the book tells all of Pistone's work in chronological order from his own perspective. The film employs the best aspects into a compact space, it steals an incident here and a confrontation there, but alongside the full account it feels rushed and the story forced. Whilst everything you read here is true, and led to over 100 convictions of real-life Mafia wiseguys and associates, it never feels overly dramatised or exaggerated. Nor does it read like an FBI report, a series of this-happened-that-happened anecdotes. It flows with enthralling detail and recounts six years in which an agent becomes so absorbed into Mafia culture that it was expected "Donnie Brasco" would be put forward to become a made guy whilst still undercover, something never before seen in the mob's history.
Whether you like undercover agents, the inner-workings of the Mafia or perhaps you just enjoyed the film, this book won't disappoint. From start to finish it's a fascinating account of a truly remarkable investigation, a story as entertaining as it is insightful, in short; too much for Hollywood to cope with.
Written by Jay