At an interview session recently for the National Geographic Channel’s forthcoming “Inside the Mafia” documentary, Joe Pistone, the former FBI agent who went undercover as Donnie Brasco, and ex-mobster Dominick Montiglio were asked what mobster movies and TV shows were the most realistic and the most ludicrous.
Both men praised the truthfulness of “Goodfellas,” “Casino” and “Donnie Brasco,” movies that, according to Pistone, “showed these guys are just common street thugs.” He said “The Godfather” romanticized mobsters unforgivably. “Don Corleone? I’ve been with a lot of mob bosses at sit-downs, and these guys are not philosophers,” Pistone said.
Conspicuously absent from the lists was HBO’s acclaimed crime drama “The Sopranos.” So what about Tony and his crew? “The thing that ‘The Sopranos’ gets right are the murders and the illegal activities,” Pistone said.
“I need to ask Joe a question,” added Montiglio, who participated in the question and answer session from an unidentified location via satellite, his face in deep shadow. “Joe, if you ever had a boss that was seeing a female psychiatrist, how long would he last?”
“Never would have happened,” Pistone said.
“We would have shot him,” Montiglio said.
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