He agrees to meet in a scruffy building on the Manhattan waterfront, up two flights of listing stairs. In an outer room, a couple of watchful men appear and disappear. Soon, you're ushered in. Bald, barrel-chested, with a natty mustache, he sits in a straight-backed chair, as masculine as carved marble. This is the real Donnie Brasco, Joe Pistone, the FBI agent who, from 1976 to 1981, infiltrated the New York Mob and brought down more than 100 hoods. He doesn't get up, and a visitor realizes he's been visually frisked when Pistone's calculating brown eyes click into focus. That poise saw him through 6 years of deep cover and 16 more with a $500,000 price on his head. But Pistone is cool.
''The majority of 'em are still in jail or dead,'' says the lawman whose 1988 memoir, Donnie Brasco, is the basis of the film. ''But you might get a cowboy, you know? Someone who wants to make a name for himself.'' Pistone, 57, darted from the shadows only sporadically to visit the movie's New York locations, sometimes only blocks from the Mafia haunts he worked. ''Everybody was nervous,'' confesses producer Lou DiGiaimo. Pistone just grins. ''I had guys,'' he intones. ''Friends. Former agents. Cops.''
DiGiaimo (a high school pal of Pistone and a casting director for such films as The Godfather and Thelma & Louise) spent eight years steering the book to the screen. ''I've probably dealt with Mob guys more honorable than some Hollywood people,'' Pistone chuckles. After Pistone and Johnny Depp saw the final cut, says DiGiaimo, ''Johnny called me maybe four times: 'Are you sure Joe likes what I did?''' Pistone cranks back a slow nod, like a wiseguy. ''Better than 100 percent,'' he murmurs. ''He's very sensitive.''
Despite Brasco's rocky family scenes, he and wife Maggie, a former nurse, have been married since 1961 and have three grown daughters -- all living under assumed names. ''It's quite an accomplishment,'' he says in his punctuated New Jersey accent, ''because 99 percent of undercover agents are divorced.''
Suddenly he reaches for his belt, where he always carries his trusty 9 mm. Instead, this legendary purveyor of justice pulls out a beeper. Out come the Mr. Magoo glasses. He squints at the message, then inhales and rises.
''Really good meeting you!'' he says. He claps you on the shoulder. And you're gone.
You Might Also Like
- Video Review Donnie Brasco | Michael Sauter
- Movie Review Donnie Brasco (1997) | Owen Gleiberman
- Movie News Johnny Depp's new mob movie (1997) | Tim Purtell
- Spring Movie Preview FEBRUARY (1997)
- Movie News My Buddy Guard (1997) | Josh Wolk
- Movie News Notable quotes from 1990 (1990)
