Mike Fleming

In a move that pave the way for a daring FBI undercover agent to get his movie moment, Benicio Del Toro has signed on to play Jack Garcia in Making Jack Falcone. Before he retired, Garcia took down 39 members of New York’s Gambino Crime family. The Cuban-born G-man was so convincing while pretending to be Italian that he was invited to become a made man before the feds broke out the handcuffs.benicio_del_toro

While undercover cop movies like Donnie Brasco bared the dilemma of conflicted loyalties of undercover work, Garcia’s biggest dilemma was keeping his cover straight. He would go from the New York case to Miami, where he posed as a New York capo in a sting against crooked cops, to Atlantic City, where he pretended to be a drug dealer in another case.  An appearance on 60 Minutes (see video below) shows Garcia was not a logical candidate to be such a chameleon at 6’4″ and 390 pounds. Del Toro has been a bit of a chameleon himself, most recently starring in the under-performing The Wolfman and preparing to play Moe Howard in The Three Stooges.

Del Toro reunites with Steven Soderbergh and Peter Buchman, who directed and wrote Che. Buchman wrote the script, and Soderbergh is producing with Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher and John Henson. They originally set it up at Paramount, which will probably let it go. They will get a director and then send it out to financiers.