Donnie Brasco is a 1997 crime drama film directed by Mike Newell, starring Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Michael Madsen. It is based on the real-life events of Joseph D. Pistone, an FBI agent who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family, one of the Mafia's Five Families based in New York City during the 1970s, under the alias "Donnie Brasco". The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.[2] Plot. Starting in 1978, FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone is assigned to infiltrate the New York City--based Bonanno crime family. Calling himself Donnie Brasco and posing as a jewel thief expert from Vero Beach, Florida, he befriends Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, a low-level mob hit man whose personal life is in tatters, and Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, the captain of Lefty's crew.Lefty can't seem to make enough money, his son is a drug addict and he is continually passed over for promotion to a higher position within the crime family. He continually reminds Brasco of his growing disillusionment about having spent 30 years as a wiseguy (and killing 26 people), with little to show for it. In Donnie, at least, Lefty sees a young protégé who might be able to succeed where he failed. He takes Donnie under his wing. Donnie quickly becomes accepted by the other family members, as an "associate" (the lowest Mafia rank describing people who have criminal ties to the Mafia but are not actual members) and is later nearly officially inducted into the mob as a "made man."The ...