Donnie Brasco

Pistone's mother heard Johnny Depp and thought it was her son.

Joe Pistone spent months with Depp before a camera rolled, then stayed on set every day as a consultant. They worked out. Depp phoned Pistone's wife with questions. He wanted a tour of the FBI academy in Virginia. Collider retells the family visit. Pistone's mother came to set, heard Depp's voice, and thought her own son was talking. Pistone later scored the movie 85 percent accurate, latestnetflix.com contends, with the other 15 percent dressed up by director Mike Newell .

The London Times sat both men down in 1997. Depp told Pistone he wanted the film right, because Pistone would have to live with it for the rest of his life. Pistone had only known the tabloid version, the hotel rooms. He got an actor who refused to attend a screening unless Pistone sat next to him. "Most actors wouldn't care, they would just take the money and run," Pistone said. "He's a lovely guy." Depp, for his part, asked how you spend six years with a man and feel nothing. Pistone said you don't .

The book landed in 1988. Louis DiGiaimo, a childhood acquaintance of Pistone and a casting director for Barry Levinson, bought the rights and walked them into Baltimore Pictures. Paul Attanasio wrote the script. Stephen Frears signed on to direct, then Goodfellas opened in 1990 and the project stalled for years. Frears would not let go of Al Pacino as Lefty Ruggiero. Mike Newell finally shot it. Pacino played the aging Bonanno hanger-on who vouches for a Florida jewel thief named Donnie Brasco. Depp played the FBI badge under the name. Century City saw it February 24, 1997. The wide opening was February 28. Budget $35 million. Worldwide take $124.9 million. Attanasio's adaptation went to the Oscars and lost .

The 15 percent is where the fights were. Pistone says he never slapped Maggie, the wife Anne Heche plays. Newell put the hit in. Pistone remembered the silent car ride with Depp to the studio that day. "When I saw it, I went ballistic. But I don't outrank the director in this case. He's like the captain, so it stayed." The marriage-counseling scene was invented. So was the hacksaw cleanup after the Sonny Red hit, the sequence Pistone calls the Sopranos scene. They never did that. The fade-out that sends Lefty toward a bullet is invented too. The FBI arrested him and, Pistone says, saved his life. He died of cancer later .

The movie pins a medal on Pistone and hands him a $500 check. The postscript is meaner. His evidence fed more than 200 indictments and more than 100 convictions. A $500,000 open contract sat on his head for years. Collider notes he still travels under assumed names. The trailer is easy to find. Pacino in a tracksuit, schooling a kid in rules that will get him killed, then calling himself the biggest mutt in the history of the mafia if that kid is a rat , , .