Donato and Daughter

Trailer—Donato and Daughter

source: Donato and Daughter

I think this is just a TV movie (for cable) but it has very good quality. The cast is great with Charles Bronson in a very good dramatic role that actually has some real feeling to it, not just the tough guy shooting spree type movie he's more famous for, though this movie has that too. It's a good story with good acting, well worth watching.

Another excellent Bronson cop thriller & yes it may be a t.v movie but IT'S still an exciting crime thriller!!! Bronson is always great & he's one of my favourite actors & i love most of his movies especially the excellent Death Wish franchise. Here the great screen presence of Bronson is in t.v production & later he did the Excellent family of cops trilogy all t.v flicks but it doesn't take away from the quality & feel of the movie & Donato and daughter is a quality suspense cop thriller with another excellent performance by Bronson as a tough old timer cop who gets tangled up working with his daughter who is also a cop played excellently by Dana Delany she's a really good actress works perfectly With Bronson!!! There is a very sick killer committing horrendous crimes even to nuns & basically it's father & daughter team of cops to track this evil killer down,so it's basic cop thriller territory but done really well with a creepy atmosphere & a really good music score & that is so important in a detective Thriller to score the mood right & create an atmosphere & this excellent little cop film does that perfectly. I really enjoyed this film it was edgy & dark without showing all the gore,it had the mood & fear factor just right & the family drama was done really well with the donato's & you actually care about these characters & really want the sick killer caught or executed!!! So yes another great Bronson film, a great cop thriller & an excellent performance by the legendary Bronson.

****SPOILERS**** In one of his last movies the 72 year old and puffy faced Charles Bronson plays tough L.A detective Sgt.Mike Donato who's assigned with his daughter, also a member of the LAPD, Dena- Dana Dena what's the difference- played by Dana Deleny to track down a serial killer, dubbed the "Fingers Man",who's been murdering catholic nuns and cutting off their ring fingers as a souvenir. There's also a side plot here about Sgt. Donato's son Tommy, also a member of the LAPD, who was killed under very bizarre circumstances that he's been keeping from Dena that has her feel that he may have been responsible for his death! As it soon turns out, no big surprise here, that the "Fingers Killer" has been involved in a string of murders of women, mostly catholic nuns, in three different states for over some 15 years that he skillfully covered up from the local police. It's here in L.A that he gets a bit careless in his obsession with Let.Dena Donato whom he, in how pretty she is besides being catholic, developed the hots for. ****SPOILERS*** Even though age slowed him down and he shows early signs of Alzheimer's Disease, which in fact killed him ten years later, Bronson dose a fairly good job as the tough and no holds bar L.A detective Mike Donato. It's just in the close ups and in his speech pattern, that at times seems slurred, that Bronson shows his age. With his daughter ending up getting kidnapped by the killer Sgt. Donato has no choice but to give into her kidnappers demand. Only to have the helicopter that's supposed to take him out of the country with Dena as his hostage going up instead of down, that startled him, to take or fly him out of harms way. Thus finally giving the frustrated Sgt. Donato a window of opportunity to blast him!

Okay, the start was awkward, stilted, bad dialogue, bad directing and bad acting(which may have not been the actors faults). I have always like Dana Delany, but it was a difficult watch in the beginning. However, it does get better and a good watch by the end. If you choose to watch this, IMO, this is what to watch for during the movie. Xander Berkeley is very good. Bonnie Bartlett is great. Richard Kuss is very good in his small role. And Jullianna McCarthy gives a wonderful performance as the psychopath's mother. The other actors is their lesser roles are also very good. And that helps if you plan on watching this movie. The end scene was what you might expect for a made for TV movie.

The title of my comments is a phrase that I have heard in the movie, coming from the mouth of little Cal. And I think that is an awful phrase to come from a little kid... It reflects perfectly the quality of the present movie, which can not decide if it wants to be a police adventure or a family drama. The fact is that it does not work as either of them. I have not read the book, but the script is really terrible, full of stereotypes and vacuums. In my opinion Charles Bronson's movies are getting worse and worse as he gets older.

source: Donato and Daughter

The title of my comments is a phrase that I have heard in the movie, coming from the mouth of little Cal. And I think that is an awful phrase to come from a little kid... It reflects perfectly the quality of the present movie, which can not decide if it wants to be a police adventure or a family drama. The fact is that it does not work as either of them. I have not read the book, but the script is really terrible, full of stereotypes and vacuums. In my opinion Charles Bronson's movies are getting worse and worse as he gets older.

There's something alluring about Dana Delaney in this and some of her other work. She's really beautiful. But not in a striking way like Elizabeth Taylor, or ethereally like Gene Tierney. Something about her slight chin, dark eyes, dimples, and the way her lower lip folds under its upper counterpart suggests that, though she might be provoked into anger, she would never be spiteful or vicious. This hard-to-define quality is an odd blend of sensuality and nurturance. Any normal man, if distraught, would be tempted to lay his head on her bosom and let himself be comforted and, if things worked out, have her babies. Bronson, at 72, is still Bronson, doing his best to act, apparently having a little trouble slinging bodies downstairs and kicking in doors, but that's okay with me. He should get an award for being able to lift his foot as high as the doorknob. Xander Berkeley as the disdainful nun rapist and murderer is fine. He has the appearance and demeanor of a wealthy and self-satisfied upper-middle-class snob. That may be the chief weakness of the story. It's a routine serial killer movie -- told almost exclusively from the point of view of the father/daughter team of Bronson and Delaney. It was filmed in Los Angeles and, like the city itself, it looks like the ordinary, soulless, uninspired, smog-ridden spiritual void that it is. There is virtually no local color, even granted that it's hard to find in the first place. It was reassuring, though, to see the Bradley Building put to use as a location once again. The first time I remember seeing it was in "Double Indemnity" (1943). But none of the character seem to be FROM anyplace. Bronson is a Lithuanian from some small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania, but you wouldn't know it. Neither would you guess that Xander Berkeley was born in Brooklyn or that Dana Delaney, born in New York City, attended Philips Andover or had any history at all. The characters are "blanks", like the body that King Donovan finds on his pool table in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." It makes one long for The Dead End Kids, almost.