Serpico is undoubtedly director Sidney Lumet's best film. I have still not viewed his 12 Angry Men and others, but of all those I had seen this is the best.

Of course, Serpico will remind many of Pacino's volatile performance, which was recognised by the Academy Awards with mere nomination, and no win. Wait, Jack Lemmon won that year (1973). Okay, the Academy is excused.

Based on Peter Maas' non-fiction story of a real police officer, Serpico is, at the end of the day, a story of a loner, somehow in the spirit of On The Waterfront (1954) and Dirty Harry (1971). It is, in a way, a cousin of the latter, being a cop film and all. While Harry broke many rules and kept the street clean, Serpico stuck to it and collected a lot of enemies.

You see, two years earlier, Pacino's Michael Corleone dished out offers others can't refuse. Here, he gets into hot soup for actually refusing offers. Serpico hated corruption. He was then (late sixties to early seventies) seen as a weirdo. Many other characters refer to him just that. He dresses and keeps his facial hair like a hippie, and tells his superior that that helps him "to be in touch" with the street. Radical, fashion wise, but deep inside he was a conservative moralist.

During the course of his duty, he receives an envelope with 300 dollars in it and he broods over it for nights. He turns it over to his superior. His continuous whining about it ends him up with the higher levels, finally with the Mayor. Nothing happens. He goes to the outside agency and the dung hit the fan.

The other cops are nowhere like him. They are dressed conservatively, with short hair and all, but were 'on the take'. Some reviewers remarked that these were Nixon's 'silent majority'. I am not much of a politics buff myself, but am very familiar with some of the related movies (All The President's Men and Oliver Stone's Nixon), and could identify them immediately. Boy, they are scary. In one scene, a slight misunderstanding (though the other guy flashed a knife) finds Serpico doing a judo to a fellow officer, and pointing a newly-purchased automatic on him. He is scared. The whole precinct is after him.

Speaking of the new gun. I liked this line (or something like it):

Store guy: That takes 14 rounds. What are you against? A battalion?

Serpico: No. Just a division.

There are some humourous moments in this film, especially when Serpico was making out with this girlfriends, and when Randolph's Chief Green claims that he too doesn't have friends.

Pacino is at his most intense. He had never been better. Okay, I lied. He had always been better. Definitely one of the older actors who never got stagnant. I find this happening to De Niro, but am waiting for some magic to happen. Pacino inhibits the role like an old cloth. It had been with him and he wears it like he owned it for years. Am I repeating myself?

The true star of this film is Lumet. I am surprised that I have not written a piece about him in the Film Personality section of this page. I will. He is truly one of the best Hollywood directors. Here, his economical and acute sense of filmaking is almost a textbook material. I read somewhere that the film was low-budgeted, but looking at it I was in doubt. It is rich with visuals, especially the streets of New York and the police stations. Of course, they shot the film on location. Lumet was especially pleased with the New York Police's cooperation despite the fact that the film depicted the nightmare happened in their own precincts.

Lumet is actors' director. Which meant that nobody is spared when they are on screen. Everyone HAS to perform well, and it shows in this film, where supporting players like John Randolph, Tony Roberts (an early Woody Allen regular) and Cornelia Sharpe. I admit, I got the names especially Randolph and Sharpe's from IMDB. I proceeded and checked their careers. The latter, especially, had a poor one. She disappeared in the eighties. Why I say that? Just to justify Lumet's ability to turn the worst actor in a terrific one. She was good in this film.

"They don't make 'me like that no more". How true. Serpico will be up there with other great cop movies of that era like Dirty Harry, Bullit, The French Connection 1 and 2 and Fort Apache, The Bronx.