Serpico (1973)

Frank Serpico begins his career with the NYPD as an idealistic rookie who believes in the moral value of policing. He has a simple and old-fashioned ethical code, an outlook which used to be known as honesty. What he finds is a moral sewer, five boroughs wide, in which almost every cop is on the take. The police are just another gang of hoodlums, but with more guns than the bad guys. Even basically decent cops go along with the kickback culture, because a locker-room psychology prevails in which values have become perverted. Squad loyalty is now a criminal conspiracy of silence. Detectives do not hesitate to shake-down hoods who are slow to pay. To Frank Serpico, this is simply wrong. He wants no part of it. And so his long agony begins.
Pacino's earnest intensity fuses Frank Serpico's disparate qualities into a spellbinding performance. The guy is a bundle of contradictions, the kind of man who could charm you, move you, and drive you crazy at the same time: a nice Catholic boy who can't commit to any of the devoted women in his life; an honest, downright rigid moralist who's also a free spirit known as "Paco" to his friends and lovers; and an undercover cop with detective aspirations whose hippie-like appearance rankled his superiors and fellow officers even as it helped him blend in on assignments. Pacino's riveting performance carries the film, with fine support by Barbara Eda-Young as Laurie, the genuinely loving partner who is destroyed by her man's seeming eagerness for martyrdom in rejection of domestic happines
The sparing use of simple yet haunting music by Mikis Theodorakis sets the tone well.
Lumet's camera captures the grit of New York and the paranoia of being an undercover officer. It's truly one of the greatest pictures of all times, and arguably Al Pacino's best performances.
Serpico got a nomination for Best Screenplay adapted from another source, it was adapted from Peter Maas's biographical study. Al Pacino unfortunately lost the Best Actor Oscar that year to Jack Lemmon for Save the Tiger. Oddly enough Save the Tiger is about another man at a crossroads in his life and his choice is break the law.
4/5