Serpico (1973)

There's a moment watching Serpico where the rage just sits in your chest and won't shift. Not because of any grand explosive scene, but because of the quiet, grinding weight of a man doing the right thing and being made to suffer for it. That's what makes this film so extraordinary, and what makes Al Pacino's performance one of the finest I've ever seen put to screen.

Frank Serpico was a real New York City cop who refused to take bribes at a time when pocketing dirty money was so embedded in the NYPD it had practically become part of the job description. The film follows his years-long battle to expose that corruption, and director Sidney Lumet strips it of any Hollywood gloss. This isn't a thriller in the conventional sense. It's a slow, suffocating portrait of institutional rot, and of what it costs a person to stand against it when everyone around them has already made their peace with the filth.

Pacino is absolutely masterful here. He carries the film completely. You watch Serpico evolve over years, his appearance changing, his idealism hardening into something more like embattled stubbornness, and Pacino makes every stage of that transformation feel earned. There's no showboating, no grandstanding. The performance is captivating precisely because it's so interior. You feel his frustration, his loneliness, his moments of genuine fear, all without Pacino ever telegraphing any of it too broadly. It's the kind of role that reminds you what this man was capable of at his peak.

I've loved Pacino in so many things. Dog Day Afternoon, made just two years after this, is another where he holds the whole picture together through sheer force of presence. But Serpico might actually be the more demanding of the two, because Lumet asks him to be compelling while doing very little that's outwardly dramatic. He's not robbing a bank. He's filling out reports, attending meetings, getting stonewalled by superiors, and slowly watching his world shrink around him as colleagues freeze him out. That's harder to make gripping than it sounds, and Pacino never lets you look away.

What shakes you, and what stays with you long after the credits roll, is the real-world context. This isn't fiction. These were actual people, actual precincts, actual sums of money changing hands. The corruption Serpico fought wasn't some hidden pocket of bad behaviour. It was systemic, widespread, and largely tolerated. And when you sit with that, the film stops being just a great piece of cinema and becomes something closer to an indictment. It makes you angry in the way the best socially conscious films do, not by lecturing you but by putting the evidence in front of you and letting it land.

And then you think about now. You think about what's changed and what probably hasn't, and the anger doesn't really go anywhere. Serpico was made over fifty years ago and it doesn't feel like a period piece. That's either a tribute to Lumet's filmmaking or a damning reflection on how little institutions actually reform themselves. Probably both.

If I have any minor reservations, it's that the film's middle section can feel a touch repetitive in its rhythms. Serpico goes to another superior. Gets another brush-off. Returns home disillusioned. That cycle is the point, obviously, it's meant to convey the exhaustion of his position, but there are moments where you feel it stretch. It's a small complaint against an otherwise gripping, deeply felt piece of work.

Four and a half stars. One of those films you find yourself thinking about days later, still quietly furious on behalf of a man who simply refused to look the other way. Watch it, and then sit with the discomfort it leaves behind. That discomfort is the whole point.

Rating: ★★★★½  | Year: 1973  | Watched: 2025-06-27

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More from Sidney Lumet: Dog Day Afternoon (1975) · 12 Angry Men (1957)
More with Al Pacino: Scent of a Woman (1992) · Cruising (1980) · Insomnia (2002) · Scarecrow (1973)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)