Serpico

Serpico (1973)

Runtime: 129 minutes

Directed by: Sidney Lumet (RIP)

Starring: Al Pacino, Tony Roberts, Barbara Eda-Young, Allan Rich

From: Paramount

Now, here’s some more classic fare. This is something I recorded off of TCM when they aired it one night. I stumbled upon it this week and it was perfect, as director Lumet of course passed away just two weeks ago, and up to this point, I had only seen one of his movies before-Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead-so this would be a nice second film. Plus, the movie came from producer Dino De Laurentiis, who also recently passed away, so it serves in that fashion too.

So, now that I’ve seen it, I can agree with the consensus that it’s great. This true story was based on the story of Frank Serpico (Pacino), who was a cop in New York City who was best described as a nonconformist and he ended up in undercover, so that he can dress up in hippie clothing and sport some great hair, facial and otherwise. He soon discovers that corruption is rampant and he always refuses to take money even though he gets asked to take it often. That labels him as someone who is untrustworthy so that causes much stress and trouble with his personal life and his lady friends. He tries to go to higher authorities to stop the corruption, but he runs into trouble there. I won’t reveal more, but you can always just look up his life story if you don’t know it and haven’t seen the film.

As I said, the movie’s pretty great and it’s no wonder it’s become a classic. Everything about it is quality, from the direction to (I presume, anyway) the telling of the true story, and I’ll guess what was on the screen was mostly factual. I can’t gripe about any of the performances, and the Mikis Theodorakis score works. But, the highlight in this naturally dramatic story is Pacino in the lead. He’s not like current day Al (or even recent Al either) where he’s at 11 most of the team and spends a lot of time SHOUTING and over-acting. While he does do some SHOUTING, it’s definitely a nuanced performance where he goes through a range of emotions while dealing with an extraordinarily difficult situation. This is quality filmmaking.

I do have to mention that there is some comedy involved. What got a huge laugh out of me was one scene involving Serpico and another cop playing Peeping Tom in the bathroom; they had the lights off to do this. Their Lieutenant (James Tolkan; yep, the bald guy who was the principal in the Back to the Future movies, along with being in the likes of Top Gun and Masters of the Universe; he looked pretty much the same back then as he did in the 80’s) walks in and accuses Serpico-in a profane manner-of being a homosexual. I won’t repeat the dialogue but I found it to be hilarious, as it was Tolkan who was saying those profane things. So yeah, if you haven’t seen this movie, you should.

I’ll be back Monday night.