I finally read the book. I enjoyed reading it. Now I'll have to read Unfinished Business or whatever the name is.

I am waiting for Unfinished Business to hit the bargain books before I buy it.

I saw the extended cut of the film and liked it. Lefty and Donnie are feeding the Lion tons of hamburgers through the window of Lefty's car. I also noticed that one of the members of Sonny reds crew is Tony Lip who played Carmine Senior on the Sopranos.

Thanks Don Cardi!

I need to watch this film again sometime, must be 5 years since i watch this..

Just watched this again for the first time in years...what a great movie - Fuhgettaboutit! The scene in which Joe Pistone is explaining the meaning of "Fuhgettaboutit" to the other Federal agents in the motel room is priceless!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf0ZyoUn7Vk

I think this is a very underrated Pacino movie.

Thanks Cardi, I was lookin' for a Search Function ... HAHA, Didn't think the site had one until "you" got me lookin' twice!

Yo, Does anybody know if Donnie Brasco is based off of real life events? and if so (which is most likely in mobster movies), who & what?

I've never seen this one. It's on the list! Thanx!

Johnny Depp plays a very good performance and you can tell that he was counseled by the real Pistone, who was a participant in the making of this movie. The movie shows both his mob and personal life and does that very well, but they could have better made it a mini-serie as there was a lot of interesting stuff that was left out of the movie. It's still one of my favorite gangster films though.

I've seen this movie a couple of times now and it rocks puss! I love it completely and utterly. Probably like BLIBBLEBLABBLE stated, one under-rated Pacino movie. Its truly one of my faves now and I know now that its based off of real life events. Thanks for leading me in the right direction.

I've noticed some inconsistencies from the History Channel Documentary on Donnie vs. the movie.

In the documentary, It IS NOT Lefty that presents Pistone with the diamonds. Its an earlier crew he was with. Lefty didn't come along until after Pistone had been under for awhile with "a different" "low time" mob family.

I love that word, FUGAIZI !!! you learn something new everyday!

You have to read the book, Tru.

It was Jilly Greca's Brooklyn crew that you're referring to. And no one "presented" Donnie with the diamonds to fence. What happened was, Donnie didn't like the guy who stole it (from a home invasion if I remember correctly).

Anyway, the guy was showing it off at the club and Donnie was able to detect a flaw of some kind (Pistone took jewelry classes during his FBI training), and Donnie took great pleasure in telling him it was a fake. The guy had it checked out, and it turned out that Donnie was right.

Yeah, and Jilly was from the Colombos, which Pistone was first associated with.

Joe Pistone was on one of our local radio shows about a month ago. He told the following hilarious story. I forget where he was at, but he was doing some undercover work again (obviously using a different alias), after the entire Donnie Brasco thing was over. I believe that this even happened within the past five years. Anyway, he was meeting with some low-level wiseguy and Pistone was trying to win his trust. The wiseguy was a bit unsure, saying that he wanted to trust Pistone, but also wondered "how do I know you're not like that Donnie Brasco? You know, an undercover fed."

Pistone said it was all he could do not to laugh at how incredibly stupid this guy was, particularly since the wiseguy did make the decision to trust Pistone.

Right on Goombah, so Pistone is still doing undercover wiseguy work, huh? Right On! I'd like to hear more when you get a chance.

Pretty funny the guy mentions brasco and doesn't even realize he's talking to the guy ;-)

Have you guys seen the VALUETAINMENT interview with Joe Pistone? It's good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v-X06Q04w4

lefty died in jail not by being whacked. sonny black was whacked and had his hands chopped off for allowing donnie to be brought in. at one point they were going to make donnie.

Not quite...Lefty was released b4 his death.

kudos for the answer. i think he died of cancer.

Correct.

But , as the movie somehow got a hold of the undesirable news..Lefty did in fact have "cancer of da prick"...but that's not what was his demise...it was tobacco.

Lefty personified the old school Code of Honor more than most Mob guys. When the news about Pistone broke, he refused to rat on anybody,and caught a 20 yr sentence. He served about 13 and due to his health,he was released. Originally he was on the "Hit List",but since he kept his mouth shut,he got a pass.He only lived about another 2 years after getting out,but even to the end he refused to talk about his Mob associates. He even turned down a huge amount of money,(some say up to 1,000,000 ) to do a promo interview for the movie. Reportedly,on his deathbed,he threatened to spit in the faces of the producers if they brought it up. He could have taken the money,wrote a book like Pistone,and retired comfortably....But maybe the most important reason that he didn't snitch was that his family would have to live with the shame of his betrayal, and would've lost their honor. I believe that, regardless of the sentence that he could have gotten, he would have done every second and never give the Feds the satisfaction of flipping him.

Wonder how they got the lion from the airport to the burger place.

who's kid overdosed.

Great thread. Donnie Brasco is easily my favorite mob film. Anyone catch the TV miniseries of this story? I think it was called "Falcone."