“Serpico” – Alone against Everyone [movie review]
Title: “Serpico”
Release Date: 1973
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Al Pacino, John Randolph, Biff McGuire, Barbara Eda-Young, Cornelia Sharpe, Tony Roberts
Sidney Lumet’s “Serpico” is a true story about an uncompromising cop who decides to fight a corrupt system on his own. Al Pacino’s daring, Golden Globe-winning performance is an outstanding artistic creation, bordering on Conradian inspiration. Serpico is a great thriller with profound psychological observations that has not aged at all and is still watched today with genuine admiration.
“Serpico” – a story based on real events
Sidney Lumet’s film is a story based on real events. It tells the story of Franco Serpico (played by Al Pacino), a young police academy graduate who, full of ideals, starts working as a law enforcement officer in New York. Very quickly, his ideas clash with reality.
In every department, from the preventive units to the anti-drug squad, the same rules apply. The police force is riddled with corruption on various scales, tolerated by superiors who are part of the whole system. Officers devote more energy to securing their “due” than to performing their duties. Serpico decides not to succumb to the temptation to break the law and takes up a lonely fight against crime and the system. As one of the pioneers of undercover work, he uses ingenious methods to blend in with the crowd. In keeping with the fashion of the 1970s, he grows his hair, beard, and mustache, and wears jewelry and hats associated with drug dealers. Above all, however, he intends to put an end to the pathology of the system and reports to his superiors about what is happening in his department.
With the help of a colleague and one honest inspector, the case finally reaches the media and an investigative commission is appointed. However, Serpico pays a heavy price for this: he becomes a black sheep and the target of open hostility from his colleagues. Finally, on February 3, 1971, during an intervention in Brooklyn, he is betrayed by his colleagues and seriously shot in the face. He miraculously escapes death. In June 1972, he testifies before the Knapp Commission, then leaves the police force for good and moves to Switzerland.
“Serpico” – a great thriller and portrait of a corrupt America
“Serpico” is a movie that is still watched with genuine delight today. It is a classic thriller enriched with social and psychological observations. We follow the fate of the main character and his gradual immersion into the corrupt world of the police with bated breath. At first, it seems that the disease consuming this institution is nothing more than harmless superficial scratches, which we see in one of the scenes showing Frank’s beginnings in the uniformed service. When the protagonist wants to order his favorite chicken at a restaurant, his senior partner informs him that he must not be picky because the owner offers them free dinner in exchange for certain favors. This scene encapsulates the paradox of being entangled in a corrupt system: even if someone wants to pay for their meal honestly, they cannot do so. They eat for free, but they get what they hate.
As Serpico climbs the ladder, dreaming of promotion to detective, it turns out that the corruption runs deep and reaches the very top of the New York Police Department. Everywhere, the same rule applies: the deal is that no one can break it, because they automatically become suspicious. Frank, as the only one who “doesn’t take,” is considered an outsider and, of course, punished accordingly.
On a social level, Lumet’s film is a critical portrait of America as a whole, consumed from within by serious pathologies. The fight against corruption in the New York police force lasted twenty years. And all this took place against a backdrop of rising crime and drug addiction. In order to make the narrative more credible, Serpico was conceived as a reportage-style film. Even the most personal events in the protagonist’s life are portrayed in an extremely simple manner, without delving into the characters’ deep motivations or thoughts. The characters are characterized using a behavioral method, solely through their actions and spoken lines. The Oscar-nominated screenplay by Norman Wexler and Waldo Salt was based on Peter Maas’ book “Serpico: The Classic Story of the Cop Who Couldn’t Be Bought”.
“Serpico” – Al Pacino as a messianic hero
At the center of Lumet’s film is the character of an unyielding police officer who, against all odds and at the risk of his life, decides to stand up for universal values. Al Pacino’s performance as Serpico is truly spectacular and memorable, rightly awarded with a Golden Globe. The actor later played another important, albeit different, role in Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon“. His character, Serpico, is of Italian descent and, as one might guess, has had a difficult childhood in Brooklyn. In a sense, he is an eccentric, distinguishing himself from his colleagues not only by his beliefs but also by his level of intelligence. He attends literature classes and learns ballet moves from his dancer girlfriend, which he claims help him stay in shape. At the same time, he is endearingly funny, but also introverted, complicated, and difficult to figure out. These traits cause him to lose his partners, Leslie (Cornelia Sharpe) and Laurie (Barbara Eda-Young).
Serpico, in his unwavering loyalty to his principles, resembles characters from Joseph Conrad’s prose. He faces a corrupt world almost alone and does not back down even when his life is in danger. What is more, it is only thanks to Frank’s sacrifice that he manages to reach the public and move people’s hearts and minds. Serpico in Lumet’s film thus bears the traits of a messianic hero who, through his sacrifice, brings about the renewal of a demoralized world. However, this exaggeration does not seem out of place on screen, as Al Pacino has perfectly balanced the crystal-clear and ordinary human sides of his character. This is one of the reasons why the film is truly valuable cinema.