Film Forum

(1973) Al Pacino’s Frank Serpico flashes back from his beginnings as a naive, idealistic police recruit to a bearded, hippie-like undercover detective in a relentless mission against corrupt cops, aided only by pot smoking button-down cop Tony Roberts. Pacino’s blowtorch performance as the actual hero cop vaulted him to the front ranks of American actors. 35mm. Approx. 129 min.

Reviews

“Galvanizing because of Al Pacino's splendid performance in the title role and because of the tremendous intensity that Mr. Lumet brings to this sort of subject.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“A tour de force genre piece that transcends the supercop conventions to create a moving, engrossing portrait of Frank Serpico.”
– Chicago Reader

“The ultimate development of the all-cops-are-bent theme that understandably proliferated in the counterculture-dominated, post-Watergate 1970s.”
– Empire

“One of the grittiest, least romantic movies ever shot in New York.”
– Philip French

“Never has a cast wrung so many meanings out of one four-letter word, and I don’t mean love.”
– Pauline Kael