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Dom Robinson reviews

Donnie Brasco

In 1978, the US government waged a war against organised crime.
One man was left behind the lines.

Distributed by

Entertainment In Video

      Cover
    • Cat.no: EDV 9018
    • Cert: 18
    • Running time: 120 minutes
    • Year: 1997
    • Pressing: 1999
    • Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
    • Chapters: 12
    • Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
    • Languages: English
    • Subtitles: None (not what it says on the box!)
    • Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)
    • 16:9-enhanced: No
    • Macrovision: No
    • Disc Format: DVD 9
    • Price: £19.99
    • Extras : Scene index, trailer, 'making of' featurette.

    Director:

      Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Good Father, Into the West, The Man in the Iron Mask)

    Producer:

      Mark Johnson, Barry Levinson, Louis DiGiaimo and Gail Mutrux

    Screenplay:

      Paul Attansio (based on the book by Joseph P. Distone with Richard Woodley)

    Music:

      Patrick Doyle

    Cast:

      Lefty Ruggiero: Al Pacino (Carlito's Way, Chinese Coffee, City Hall, Devil's Advocate, Dick Tracy, Dog Day Afternoon, Frankie and Johnny, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Godfather I-III, Heat, Looking for Richard, Scarface, Scent of a Woman, Sea of Love, Serpico)
      Donnie Brasco: Johnny Depp (Arizona Dream, Benny and Joon, Dead Man, Don Juan De Marco, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Nick of Time, What's Eating Gilbert Grape ?)
      Sonny: Michael Madsen (Free Willy 1 & 2, The Getaway (1994), The Last Days of Frankie the Fly, Mulholland Falls, Reservoir Dogs, Species, Species 2, Thelma and Louise, Wyatt Earp)
      Ricky: Bruno Kirby (The Basketball Diaries, Between the Lines, City Slickers, Golden Gate, TV: Tales from the Crypt)
      Maggie: Anne Heche (Adventure of Huck Finn, Force Majeure, I Know What You Did Last Summer, I'll Do Anything, The Juror, Milk Money, Psycho 98, A Simple Twist of Fate, Six Days Seven Nights, Volcano, Wag The Dog, Walking and Talking)


Donnie Brasco is the assumed name that Johnny Depp, an FBI agent, goes by when attempting to infiltrate one of the mob families. It translates as "The Jewel Man" and when he meets the ageing hit-man Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino), he's posing as a jewellery expert. Lefty puts his trust in Donnie and introduces him to his friends, but the deeper in he gets, the greater the risk in which he could be putting Lefty.

This film has a good cast, but no-one really pushes the boat out in terms of their acting ability. Only Depp stands out as an actor playing a character we haven't seen him play before, whereas Pacino has been a gangster before in the well-known Godfather trilogy and puts in a performance here that he could've phoned in, Michael Madsen has played the heavy in films such as Reservoir Dogs and the 1994 remake of The Getaway. Finally, it's a little unrealistic to place celebrated Hollywood lesbian Anne Heche in the wifey role as Depp's better half.


This title is one of the second batch of DVD releases from Entertainment in Video, but still it suffers the same fate that some of their other titles do, namely I Know What You Did Last Summer, Evita and Spawn: Director's Cut, in that while bring presented in their original widescreen ratio, Donnie Brasco being 2.35:1, none of them are anamorphically-enhanced, unlike the Region 1 DVD in this case, so even though the encoding is artifact-free, the final image could have looked a lot better. Note that there is a small amount of grain on the picture running all the way through but only showing up more on areas of the picture that have a light colour.

The average bitrate is a very good 7.70Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.

The sound also shares a problem with the other titles in that while being filmed with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, it's merely represented in DD2.0 which translates to Dolby Surround or ProLogic given the particular amplifier in use. I have to ask why, since Surround/Prologic-only is nothing but a backward step.

There's not much to make your speakers pull their weight, but there are some good tunes to be heard on the soundtrack, the best ones coming from : Blondie (One Way or Another and Heart of Glass), Neil Diamond (Love on the Rocks), The Spinners (Working My Way Back To You), ELO (Don't Bring Me Down), Bobby Caldwell (What You Won't Do For Love), The Trammps (Disco Inferno) and the brilliant The Alan Parsons Project (What Goes Up) on the car radio in chapter 10.


Extras :

Chapters & Trailer :

Who's responsible for the chaptering at EiV ? The Region 1 DVD contained 35, but here we are only given 12 chapters to cover the 121 minutes of film. The original theatrical trailer is also included but exhibits the 'stuttering' problems as explained in the featurette.

Languages & Subtitles :

Just one language for this disc - English in Dolby Surround - but no subtitles, despite what the back-cover of the box declares!

'Making of' featurette :

A seven-minute 'making of' gives a brief piece of background info on the real story, with chat from Depp and director Mike Newell. This extended trailer tends to stutter on my DVD-ROM player (Creative Encore Dxr2), whereas I had no such problems with the film itself.

Menu :

The menu is static and silent with a just a picture of the two leads to take your mind off its simplicity.

On inserting the disc, you see the copyright info and the Entertainment In Video logo and then the film begins without accessing the main menu first. If you go to the menu, clicking on "Play Movie" brings up the EiV logo and then the film starts. For some reason, the EiV logo shimmers like crazy and gives you a headache if you look at it for its full duration.


The problem with this film is that you keep waiting for it to take off and it never does. A film like Goodfellas has a first-rate cast, but contains things lacking in Donnie Brasco such as the raw power of the characters portrayed, not to mention the emotion as things go wrong for them but the same chemistry is severely lacking here.

Donnie Brasco may be based on a true story, but it plays like a very average cop-planted-amongst-villains-who-don't-know-who-he-is-until-it's-too-late film.

Compared to the American release - subtitles, an anamorphic print, a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an abundance of chapters are what's missing from this release so only buy this release if none of those things are important to you now or in the future.

FILM	 		: **
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ***½
SOUND QUALITY		: ***
EXTRAS			: *½
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: **½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

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