Donnie Brasco: Critic Reviews

Pacino cans the showboating bluster and gives a gently nuanced portrait of a simple man in decline.

Unfortunately, the story isn't inventive and Newell's methodical approach to it verges on monotony.

For all its treacheries, twists and turns, nothing really comes as a surprise.

Depp is as good as I've seen him, and Pacino is simply astonishing.

The movie has many human qualities and contains what will be remembered as one of Pacino's finest scenes.

Although perhaps familiar in its outer trappings, Pacino's fine work is the key to the film succeeding to the extent that it does.

In the tired figure of Lefty, manifest in the craggy icon of Pacino, our sympathies are definitely enlisted, and the theme rings a poignant note.

A consistently absorbing and intelligent adult entertainment.

Takes us into a world that the movies frequently open to us, but somehow this trip seems more real and less glamorized than most.

Pacino and Depp are a match made in acting heaven, riffing off each other with astonishing subtlety and wit.

Though the outline of what the film has tried to do is visible, so little feels at stake emotionally that anyone intending to care about these characters would be well advised, for want of a better phrase, to simply fhuggedaboudit.

A gritty and humorous crime drama about an undercover cop infiltrating the Mafia.

Depp's tight, guarded performance is almost painful to watch, and Newell seems to have reined in the flamboyant Pacino, whose portrait of the mobster as a grumpy old man may be his best work in years.

It's tempting to think Pacino stopped trying sometime in the mid-1980s. But watch Lefty's elegiac final scene and you might conclude that it's not Al's ability that's dimmed, rather it's the imagination of casting directors that's grown stale.

[Newell and Attanasio] pay as much attention to emotional details as to the clockwork details of mob life.

Just misses ranking in the upper echelon of mob movies.

A tense, sharp and compelling character study, Newell's film is a worthy addition to the Mob-movie canon.

A classy piece of work that may disappoint those looking for something more conventional.

A blue collar gangster movie that succeeds on all attempted levels, particularly acting.

Donnie Brasco is a fine movie but it might just be best remembered as Johnny Depp's coming-out party. A star -- check that, an actor -- is born.

Shows that solid acting and writing can salvage even material that has been covered by much better filmmakers.

Donnie Brasco manages to sidestep the obvious and dwell on the intriguing.

In almost every respect, Donnie Brasco is an original, the unexpected rebirth of an old and oft-told tale.

Donnie Brasco is 120 minutes of riveting filmmaking.

It's gritty, real and totally engrossing.