Serpico

Surprisingly TS1 had never seen this 1973 Al Pacino movie despite it being on so many top 100 films of all time lists. So we borrowed it from the library but the disc was bad and we had to wait until one of the TV channels aired it, fortunately not too long. Worth the wait, anyway.

Serpico is the film version of Frank Serpico’s career with the NYPD, shortened considerably by his refusal to go along with the casual corruption of (apparently) many of the detective squads and the refusal of the corrupt detectives to share Frank’s live and let live attitude. After a few years, while he attempted to go through channels to expose the problem or just get to a safe posting, they simply set him up for a bullet from drug dealer. There probably wouldn’t have been a movie except the dealer was a bad aim and ran away after only one shot.

Made on the heels of the first Godfather movie, this performance earned Pacino an Oscar nomination and established him in the top ranks of the post-Method stars with Robert DeNiro (remember, their co-starring roles in Godfather II were still a year off) and Gene Hackman (who Pacino only worked with in Scarecrow, a small, obscure production also from 1973). Sidney Lumet, starting a fine decade-long run, directed from Waldo Salt and Norm Wexler’s adaptation of Peter Maas’ bestselling biography.

Serpico actually has a fairly large number of speaking roles but Pacino is essentially the focus of every scene, even when he’s on the hospital operating table–most of the movie is told as a flashback while we wait to see if he lives–and the transformation from eager police academy graduate to cynical, yet unwilling to be corrupted, detective really is a tour de force. His career choice was inspired by a kid’s idealistic view of a neighborhood beat cop but he was always different from the other men in blue, involved and inspired by the music and politics of the ’60s where his colleagues only wanted shut of the hippies.

definitely recommended