Poll Position Part 2: Serpico (1973)

Day two of watching all the tied movies, today I watched "Serpico" (Jim's review is over here) a biographical movie based on a NY cop who is to legit to quit. Al Pacino plays Frank Serpico, and this is made aware quite obviously. I have my doubts, I honestly cannot think that Al Pacino can pull off a serious role. I see him as an over the top gangster or cop from New York. It is hard for me to really take him seriously. Hopefully that is the only thing that detracts me from enjoying this film.



The movie starts off with Frank Serpico getting driven to the hospital, how did he end up in this bloody mess? Well he was just trying to do the right thing. When he join the men in blue, he notices that everyone is being paid under the table by the big crime lords. Serpico takes none of that, he frowns upon it. As he declines any of the bribes, the fellow police men start to trust him less. "Why on Earth would he turn down free money?" They say. As Serpico bounces from division to division he sees more and more corruption. While none of his higher ups want to try and solve this mess, he gets fed up and takes the task at hand by himself.

Hippies can still be cops, right?

It takes a big man to go against the grain, takes a bigger man to do it with your life on the line. From a biographical stand point, the movie does a good job of informing the happenings without it being to dry. I can easily say it is one of the most action packed biographies I've seen in recent memory. Sadly, this doesn't necessary correlate into a great movie. Though all the information was there, and presence itself fairly elegantly. The entertainment value was just not here in the movie. For a movie, it doesn't have all the shazam compared to any other crime movie. So the overall feel of the movie can go both ways.

But one of the more entertaining parts of the movie is Al Pachino and his acting. This is one of my favourite performances with him. He isn't his usual goofy New York gangster or cop. His role in this is very serious and aggressive. In which I think he did a stellar job. I think he hit the key points of evolving and getting more pissed off as the movie went on. If I could take anything from this movie is that, I wished he had stuck with more of these series roles, I might have liked him better as an actor.

He might have gotten serious and grew some more facial hair, but he doesn't get any less serious.

The other thing that entertained me greatly was the script. It brings out Serpico as being a relatable person. Where most of the men in uniform are square and have their own lingo, Serpico is a free thinker -- some would say a hippie. But in the course of his journey from a junior ranking officer to trying to be a detective, you see the way he speaks changes. Going from a hippie to a forceful speaker.

At the end of the day, I wasn't really blown to far away from the movie. I do like the informative parts, the every adaptive script and Al Pacino. But I couldn't get around the fact the movie tried to hard to be passed off as a movie. If I had any say, I would have liked it more to be a documentary, but that is all my personal preference. I enjoy documentaries more than serious dramas.