The book not the film
21:50 Sunday 24 Jun 07
Last night finished reading Donnie Brasco. Good book. I’ve had the DVD for a long time but the few times I’d tried to watch it the film hadn’t grabbed my attention. So after finishing the book I wondered whether watching the film would be a good idea. No it would not, so I did and now I’m going to say the film was really not that good at all.
The blurb on the cover was praising the film hugely but then it had Pacino (excellent), Depp (okay), Madsen (too young) in so it was always going to garner some good reviews.
They tried to squash too much story into too few minutes. It jumped really badly, the plot was thin, no depth. The domestic scenes were unnecessary. The only scene – just the one – that I thought was close to the book was when the cops raided Kings Court. The end both of the undercover operation and of the film were poor – the former was just wrong and badly so, the latter was empty. Maybe it was too ambitious to try and squeeze 6 years into 120 minutes but then they shouldn’t have tried.
I’d recommend the book certainly but the DVD will go dusty and unwatched.
