Wasted Talent

The description of this documentary claims it is examining temptations and struggles of young celebrities on the rise to fame. Um. It focuses on actor Lillo Brancato exclusively. In a nutshell, it mostly focuses on how he got the part in The Bronx Tale, his drug addiction which led to a cop being murdered and how still today New York cops still hate him. Which is fine because it was an interesting story but after watching the one hour and six minute documentary I googled the story and found out he went to prison for 8 1/2 years and I'm not sure they even told us that part. Maybe it was passively mentioned so I didn't even realize it. Even though I found the documentary interesting and I enjoyed watching it I'm still not entirely sure what it's supposed to be about. Kind of jumped all over the place and just gave me bits and pieces of random information.

The story of Lilo Brancato is well known to most people. The actors was most famous was his role as Robert Deniro's son in A Bronx Tale. His descent into drug abuse would ruin his career and lead to the death of a NYC police officer. He served over 8 years for Robbery but escaped the more serious charge of murder. His companion was the shooter and while he was a participant in the crime he wasn't charged. This doc directed by a former cop turned film maker and I use that term lightly is terrible. He has no sense of editing ,interviews are way too long. Some of the people you scratch your head trying to figure our what are they doing in this film. Brancato has been trying to restart his career , something I Believe is never going to happen . One of the people interviewed actually states maybe he'll win an academy award one day. Brancato has turned his life around since his release . He attends NA meetings, but he will never be able to live down this crime that led to the death of an off duty police officer. He definitely should have worked with a better group of people to tell his story. The film is amateurish at best. One repeated sequence with Brancato on a couch has some guy off to the right adjusting a camera while sitting on the floor it's all very strange. I'd love to know whet the director was trying to achieve with this. Its worth a look if your interested in the story of Brancato but be warned the film is terrible . Its only redeeming quality is the length which is only 66 minutes. I get a sense in interviews he has given that he doesn't feel responsible for the cops death. Facts are you go to your friends house who always supplied you with drugs. Unknown to you who had died months earlier. You break a window attempting to get in to the apt . The neighbor an off duty cop comes out confronts you both with his gun drawn is shot dead by your buddy and you don't think your responsible .You Certainly Are !!!!!

I lost interest in about five minutes. I have no idea who these people are except for Lilo Brancato. Why was an ex-NYPD officer doing a documentary about someone involved in the killing of one of his own? I couldn't get past that. I saw this as a publicity push to shine up Brancato's image and that will never happen. To be sure, many people told him as he spiraled out of control that he was wasting his talent but he CHOSE that path anyway. I want no part of his egocentric comeback. Officer Enchautegui will not have that opportunity.

Poorly made, poorly executed, poor choice of subject. I wonder who paid for this?

Before watching this documentary if anyone would have asked me who Lillo Brancato is I wouldn't be able to answer. Then again I'm not really good in remembering names, and I'm absolutely not interested in celebrity gossip and sorts. But when I saw his face on the screen I remembered him from A Bronx Tale and The Sopranos. But that's about it, never heared about that story where a cop died, couldn't care less if I have to be honest. That aside, this documentary is mostly about Lillo Brancato, about how he became an actor, how he got into drugs and how that lead to that crime. I'm not going to say that there were no interesting parts in this documentary as there were plenty but hearing Lillo Brancato pretending God saved him and that kind of nonsense just had the opposite effect of what I think of this persona now. First I wished he would start acting again, now I couldn't care less if I saw his religious face again on a big screen. He's clearly a bit mentally ill.

I wanted to enjoy this but I couldn't sit through it. I found myself losing interest because of the amateurish and poorly edited scenes.