08/22/10 - Serpico

Serpico (1973, 130 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070666/

I'd had Serpico for a while and couldn't really decide what to watch today so I figured it was a good time to give this a watch.

The film follows Officer Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) as he goes through his career with the New York Police Department. The film actually starts with him getting taken to the hospital for getting shot but then flashes back as we see his career in the department. There's lots of minor characters that we see here but the only continual focus is on Serpico. The only two of these characters worth singling out are: Leslie Lane (Cornelia Sharpe), Serpico's girlfriend; and Bob Blair (Tony Roberts), a cop friend of Serpico's that helps him reveal the corruption in the department.

Serpico is one of the really tough movies for me to rate. Honestly, the acting was fine all around as Pacino in the 1970s was at his best and could practically do no wrong. Most of the characters that move in and out of the plot are fine actors as well but no one really stands out that much. This contributes to my claim that this film is hard to rank: sure Pacino can easily carry a movie by himself but it seems like some of these characters should've been more developed than they were. On a similar note, the movie weaves back and forth between Serpico having problems at home and problems on the job. It balances these overall pretty well but again it seems that there could be more here. Maybe the movie just takes too natural and realistic an approach to the subject and because of this there is a complete lack of extraordinary drama that can make a movie so intriguing.

Really I don't have any major complaints with Serpico. But nor do I have any major praise. The best thing is obviously the above cited Pacino acting. I guess something that works is the music choices and the distinct gritty feel of New York City. Director Sidney Lumet captured both of these expertly in Dog Day Afternoon (coming out two years later) but I can say that he did that just as well in this earlier film.

Overall, I gave this film a 6/10. Like I said above, Serpico is really hard for me to rate. It's not a bad movie but it's not a really good movie either. I selected 6/10 because it does have quality acting from Pacino and some good cinematography and music choices from Lumet.