Francis Ford Coppola, whose most recent film, Megalopolis, is a 2024 flop movie that could become a cult hit in the future, has changed cinema with his seminal contributions to the art form. The director’s most impactful work will always be the Godfather trilogy, an expansive, epic, and detailed exploration of the lives of mob bosses.

Coppola has made films in all genres, from Bram Stoker‘s Dracula, a horror movie with an incredible ensemble cast, and the war movie, Apocalypse Now, to the legal drama The Rainmaker, and the coming-of-age crime drama The Outsiders. However, The Godfather, featuring one of the best Oscar-winning actor performances, will always be his most famous film.

While Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone was later recast and portrayed by Robert De Niro, the protagonist of the trilogy, Michael Corleone, is played by Al Pacino in all three installments. However, Pacino’s most impactful gangster role might be in another mob movie, Donnie Brasco, which was released seven years after The Godfather Part III.

Al Pacino’s Donnie Brasco Is The Anti-Godfather

It Challenges Hollywood’s Typical Representation Of Gangsters

Regardless of his intentions, Coppola makes the mob seem cool and deserving of our sympathies as viewers in his timeless trilogy. Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone is simply too understated, stoic, and charismatic for his presence not to be appealing. Similarly, Michael is so lively, rebellious, and striking that one finds oneself inevitably rooting for his success.

By contrast, Al Pacino’s Lefty in Donnie Brasco is nearly pathetic. He is needy, lonely, and wants someone to befriend him more than anything else. His desperation for true friendship makes him put his faith in the тιтular Donnie, played by Johnny Depp, who is an informant for the FBI. Lefty’s screen presence tells viewers that gangsters are uncool criminals.

Donnie Brasco‘s exploration of the humanity that becomes a haunting quality in gangsters, rendering them scared and desperate, instead of aloof and ruthless, makes it the anti-Godfather. The Godfather trilogy, a TV adaptation written by the author of its source, Mario Puzo, paints a more captivating image while still staying wary of the characters’ immoral nature.

Donnie Brasco’s Realism Gives It An Edge The Godfather & Other Gangster Movies Lack

It Doesn’t Glamorize Organized Crime

The mob subgenre, different from the crime thriller genre, often immortalizes and even celebrates its subjects as martyrs. An R-rated 1980s movie worth rewatching forever, The Untouchables, explores Al Capone’s criminality, but through the eyes of the men tasked with catching him. Similarly, Donnie Brasco is told through the eyes of an FBI agent moonlighting as a mob man.

However, what sets Donnie Brasco apart is the fact that it’s a gangster movie instead of a crime thriller. It focuses on the inner workings of the mob from within the mob, but still doesn’t glamorize the criminal behavior that Lefty participates in. Moreover, Lefty is Al Pacino’s softest gangster character, who almost doesn’t feel like a gangster at times.

The lack of flattering representation imbues an element of realism in Donnie Brasco that makes it a poignant exploration of the main character’s lifestyle. Since it doesn’t celebrate rampant criminal behavior and apathetic ruthlessness, it is able to reach a place of sincerity that the more cinematic depictions of the mob aren’t able to.