Thursday, August 15, 2013

Donnie Brasco

I'm currently reading the book about the real life event, not the movie, although the movie was awesome!!
Donnie Brasco
Summary
-An FBI agent named Joseph D. Pistone goes undercover originally to investigate fencing goods in the Bonanno Mafia family for what was supposed to be a 6 month assignment. Instead, It turns into 6 years, with Benjamin 'Lefty' Ruggiero (Al Pacino), a low-ranking Bonanno soldier helping him. As the months turn to years, Joseph, now under the alias 'Donnie Brasco' is falling deeper and deeper into the mob underworld, to the point of going out on hits with Lefty because he has stopped reporting to the FBI and also has begun to care for his mob friends, including Lefty.








Cast
-Al Pacino: Benjamin 'Lefty' Ruggiero
-Johnny Depp: Joseph D. Pistone/Donnie Brasco
-Michael Madsen: Dominic 'Sonny Black' Napolitano
-Bruno Kirby: Nicky
-James Russo: Paulie
-Anne Heche: Maggie Pistone
-Zeljko Ivanek: Tim Curley
-Gerry Becker: FBI Agent Dean Blandford
-Robert Miano: Alphonse 'Sonny Red' Indelicato
-Rocco Sisto: Richard 'Richie' Gazzo
-Gretchen Mol: Sonny's girlfriend
-Madison Arnold: Jilly
-Val Avery: Santo Trafficante
-Larry Romano: Tommy Ruggiero

Did You Know?
-In Joe's report, he lists all the aliases for Benjamin Ruggiero (Al Pacino). They go as follows: Lefty, Lefty Guns, Lefty Two Guns, Half Cocked, Horse Cock
-The F word is used 185 times
-The film's version of Lefty is a mixture of the real "Lefty" and the real "Sonny Black" Napolitano

-When Donnie and Nicky are looking at the newspaper about the mob boss getting killed, the picture they are looking at was of Carmine Galante getting killed in the back of a Brooklyn restaurant in 1979
-When Johnny Depp got the role of Joe Pistone, he took firing lessons from the FBI and even met the real guy
-The movie ends with the suggestion that it's Benjamin who was getting "sent for". In real life, the FBI got ahold of Lefty on the way to being killed and arrested him, saving his life. "Sonny Black" however, was not so lucky. He was found murdered with both his hands cut off, turning up a year later on Staten Island. Lefty was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but was paroled in 1992 after he was found to be suffering from terminal cancer. He died in 1994 from lung cancer





-The characters in the movie that are based on real guys, such as "Sonny Black" Napolitano, "Sonny Red" Indelicato, "Lefty" Ruggiero, there were some factual errors here. In real life, "Sonny Black" was a large, muscularly built man with a black panther tattoo on his right arm. In the movie, Michael Madsen, who plays him, is a tall and skinny yet muscular man. There is also no tattoo showing, as it must have been a mob rule. The real "Lefty" was short and had a hair trigger temper. And he was not the one who was killed for letting "Donnie Brasco", who was an un-made FBI agent in; "Sonny Black" was the one who let him in and he paid for it with his life.

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