cult film freak: SIDNEY LUMET DIRECTS AL PACINO IN THE TRUE CRIME 'SERPICO'

Al Pacino in SERPICO Year: 1973 Rating: ***1/2

Between the two GODFATHER films that made Al Pacino not only a star but a living legend. he headlined SERPICO, where, like Michael Corleone, he starts out youthfully idealistic and winds up...

Well in this case he goes from idealism to becoming purposefully annoying... refusing any shortcut that cops can acquire in New York City, starting with the kind of sandwich he gets for free...

Al Pacino and Damien Leake in SERPICO

These are the best scenes, early on, as Frank Serpico — the real life cop-whistleblower against police corruption in New York City from the early 1970's — simultaneously learns the danger of the streets and the streetwise politics of arresting crooks without getting credit...

It's at the pivotal forty-five minute mark, as he's handed the first envelope of dirty cash, that the movie starts repeating itself... constantly refusing payouts to the chagrin of fellow officers, who don't trust an honest cop — plus he resembles a grungy counter-culture lawbreaker more than a worthwhile lawman...

Al Pacino in SERPICO with Needle Park types Tracey Walter and Jill Senter

As to why he embraced the ragged hippie look and lifestyle compared to his short-haired cohorts (or how he looked initially) is never fully explained... the progressive transition seems more like an excuse for Pacino to resemble the outsider he's portraying without words (during a time when cops weren't popular)... or to mirror the real Frank Serpico, who was hardly famous or recognizable enough to merit such a cinematic doppelganger...

Which doesn't mean Pacino isn't effective in the role — someone even mentions how Frank's either hot or cold... screaming or silent... perfect for the intense method actor, who'd have a career based on explosive emotions — and storywise, as one suspenseful crime-scene follows another, SERPICO... while overlong... is never boring...

Al Pacino in SERPICO with Cornelia Sharpe

Then, between random bursts of action, his personal life is viewed through two consecutive Greenwich Village girlfriends — and yet no one, inside or out, at home or work... including a bevy of recognizable character-actors from M. Emmett Walsh to James Tolkan to Jack Kehoe to Tony Roberts to Ed Grover to Nathan George to F. Murray Abraham... can fully comprehend what makes this guy tick...

Overall, director Sidney Lumet's deliberately exploitative, one-sided expose on police corruption doesn't seem intended to stretch beyond its own plot narrative: the what and the who are hardly distinguished, making it difficult to root for a messenger without a real human inside — especially when played by an actor who makes villains so likeable, running in circles here as someone so downright honest he's not very interesting.