This thing of ours--mob movies

I love movies about the Mafia. The American Dream has a dark side to it, full of shadows, and organized crime runs in those complicated shadows. As a society, we have become wealthy beyond imagination, and legitimate rags-to-riches stories abound. However, with wealth comes the ability to use that wealth indulge desires that society considers unsavory, even illegal. Of course, somebody has always been there to supply America with hookers, gambling, booze, and drugs, and historically speaking, that someone has been the Italian-American Mafia (and its un-made Irish and Jewish associates). The Mafia has its own rags-to-riches stories, almost always involving rather a lot of murder and mayhem, and there is a major vicarious thrill to watching movies about these guys. They inhabit a world without boundaries, a world in which your best friend is your friend only as long as he doesn't rat you out or have you killed. In the end, money is the only thing that matters, whatever the mob powers-that-be might say about honor and tradition.

"The Godfather" (1972), "The Godfather Part II" (1974), "GoodFellas" (1990), and "Donnie Brasco" (1997) are all excellent movies. The Godfather films are operatic, and reflect life at the top of the mob organizational chart. Indeed, Francis Ford Coppolla wants the viewer to think of the Corleone family as virtually identical to any corporate or governmental hierarchy. There's a great scene in Havana in which Hyman Roth proclaims that the mob is "bigger than A.T.&T." There's very little in the films about life among the wiseguys lower down on the mob food chain. All of that said, Al Pacino was brilliant as Michael Corleone in both movies, and he had an excellent supporting cast including Diane Keaton, Robert Duval, James Caan, Lee Strasberg, and Marlon Brando. And who can forget the baptism scene near the end of Godfather I?

"GoodFellas" and "Donnie Brasco" depict life among lower level wiseguys, and serve to correct any romantic notions people might have about the mob after watching the Godfather films (though I don't know many people who in real life would piss on Michael Corleone to save his life if he were on fire). Both movies are based on real-life experiences, and they are both fabulous stories. "GoodFellas," by far the more violent of the two, tracks the life of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) as he rose in the ranks of the Lucchese-affiliated gang of "Jimmy the Gent" Burke (Jimmy Conway in the movie, played by Robert DeNiro). Burke put together the "Roberts Lounge Crew" that staged the Lufthansa heist, the biggest robbery in American history. Burke then whacked all the guys who actually stole the money, except for the psychopathic Tommy deSimone, played wonderfully by Joe Pesci. Tommy, however, gets whacked for indiscretions of his own (IRL, John Gotti pulled the trigger on deSimone, on the okay of Lucchese capo Paul Vario, who is played by Paul Sorvino in the movie). Martin Scorsese directed, so this is a brutally realistic film, but one that is very hip, especially in its use of music.

"Donnie Brasco" is about the FBI agent who infiltrated the Bonnano family in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Johnny Depp is Brasco, whose real name is Joe Pistone. Brasco gets too close to a couple of the mobsters (including one played by Al Pacino)--and almost gets made--but he gives the FBI a mother lode of information. After the FBI pulled Brasco and told the Bonnanos about the infiltration, one of the guys to whom Brasco had become very close was whacked. The have the wrong one getting killed in the movie, but oh well. The movie has some relevance now, as Bonnano boss Joe Massino earlier this year was convicted of the hit on "Sonny Black" Napolitano and of some other murders depicted in "Donnie Brasco."

There are other mob movies out there, but those are the four I would recommend.