Review: Serpico

Set between 1960 and 1972, this is the story of New York cop Frank Serpico (Al Pacino), whose idealistic ways, cultured interests, and hippie, plainclothes manner of dress put him at odds with his co-workers who don’t understand what he knows: They can’t get anyone to co-operate with the police if they feel like cops don’t speak their language. He also doesn’t much go for their rather violent interrogation methods of dealing with suspected criminals, either. When he uncovers a mountain of corruption on the force, his refusal to participate further has him isolated. Finally, Serpico joins up with a politically-connected, equally straight-shooting cop (played by Tony Roberts) to try and get something done about the police corruption. Unfortunately, they’re not getting anyone high-up to listen, and all it’s doing is putting a huge target on Serpico’s back. Cornelia Sharpe and Barbara Eda-Young play the two women who come into Serpico’s life, both finding it difficult dating a cop, let alone a crusading one. Biff McGuire plays the avuncular, Catholic Captain Inspector McClain, whom Serpico attempts to get help from. Jack Kehoe plays a corrupt cop who tries to get Serpico on board, John Randolph plays the somewhat sympathetic Chief Green, M. Emmet Walsh plays the not terribly sympathetic Chief Gallagher, Norman Ornellas is the scary cop and ‘bag man’ Serpico is paired with, James Tolkan is hilariously humourless as a superior officer who suspects Serpico of being gay, Kenneth McMillan plays a deli owner who lets cops eat for free, and F. Murray Abraham appears as a cop at the film’s climax.

 

If you only see one police corruption film in your life, make it this 1973 Sidney Lumet (“12 Angry Men”, “The Hill”, “The Deadly Affair”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, “Network”) film, the standard bearer in the genre. Based on the real-life Frank Serpico as depicted in  the book by Peter Maas, it also contains Al Pacino’s best-ever screen work. As much as I’m a bigger fan of Jack Lemmon than Pacino by a mile, there’s no doubt in my mind that Lemmon’s Oscar for “Save the Tiger” should’ve gone to Pacino instead (Although “The Sting” is my favourite film from 1973, not “Serpico”). I don’t think Pacino has been this sympathetic since, and he gives a perfectly modulated performance. A lot of actors would overplay this role, hell post 1980 Al Pacino would give it the ‘Shouty Al’ treatment. But here, Pacino rarely raises his voice, and when he does, it’s at the right moments. It’s really something to witness.

 

It’s an incredibly tense, well-directed film. You really get a strong sense of the danger Serpico is being put in and it’s scary, because there seems little concern for his life from the people he’s helping to bring down the bad eggs. Why would anyone want to be a good guy in a situation like this? It makes you admire Serpico even more. I also really liked how the film showed Serpico rubbing his colleagues the wrong way almost immediately simply through little things, like his hippie mode of dress, being a fussy eater, and seeking non-violent means of solving things. This is all before the issue of police corruption rears its ugly head and truly places Serpico on the outer.

 

Pacino is backed up by a solid cast of character actors, right down to small roles for Kenneth McMillan, M. Emmet Walsh, James Tolkan, and a young-ish F. Murray Abraham. The most impressive work is by Tony Roberts, Jack Kehoe, and a scary as hell Norman Ornellas. Roberts is a still very underrated actor most often utilised in the 70s (particularly by Woody Allen), and he’s terrific as Serpico’s closest ally, even if Serpico starts to feel like he’s being left exposed to potential assassination doing all of the real work for Roberts. Kehoe has seemingly been around forever (he played Pat Garrett’s writer father in “Young Guns II” and a member of the troupe of con men in “The Sting”), and he’s perfectly cast here as an initially friendly face on the force, who has unfortunately gone very much to seed. Ornellas sadly died in 1975 of cancer, and this was his one and only film role. That’s a shame, because he had a real crazy, maniacal Ernest Borgnine quality to him here as one of the ‘bag men’ Serpico gets partnered with. You’ll definitely remember him here. Both Barbara Eda-Young and Cornelia Sharpe are perfectly fine as the women in Serpico’s life, I’m a bit surprised to have not seen much more of them outside of this film (Sharpe, a former model, married the film’s producer Martin Bregman in 1981). There’s also a really good and slightly underrated music score by Mikis Theodorakis (“Zorba the Greek”, “Z”), whilst we also get some terrific and useful location shooting. I wouldn’t call the film docudrama per se, it’s simply gritty and authentic. Lumet clearly knows New York and seems to know his stuff with the police corruption theme, too. Honestly, the film has very few flaws. If I had to latch onto something that rubbed me slightly the wrong way, perhaps Biff McGuire (in a perfectly fine performance) plays a somewhat clichéd and obvious part. You know almost immediately that his character is going to be perfectly useless and paying mere lip service to cleaning up the police force. He’s a politician, basically. Otherwise, I see no flaws here, and although not all of Lumet’s films are worth seeing, when he’s on target he’s practically unbeatable (Pretty much my favourite director, even if “Equus” sucked hard and “Power” was flat as a tack). This truly is the best film of its kind, and shows Pacino (who has also done excellent work in “The Godfather Part II”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, “Sea of Love”, and “Insomnia”) at the top of his game, in the prime of his career. Scripted by Waldo Salt (“Midnight Cowboy”, “Coming Home”) and Norman Wexler (“Joe”, “Saturday Night Fever”, “Raw Deal”), this is must-see true-life drama, with a little understandable dramatic license.

 

Rating: A-