One can't know what the director, Sidney Lumet, was aiming for -- a commercial success probably -- but he achieved more than that. Frank Serpico wasn't a hippy. He disapproved of marijuana because it was illegal. And his face was pock-marked and he wasn't as handsome as Al Pacino. But he was in his way equally saintly.
First of all, what a picture of New York City, in all its grime and without any splendor. You could walk a dozen blocks and never be out of a crime scene. There's the Williamsberg Bridge (I think) and not much else in the way of landmarks. Nobody eats at Lutece. The whole place is thoroughly louche.
The acting, with the exception of Tony Roberts, is superior.
And -- maybe this hit me differently -- it seems to be a movie about police corruption, and of course it is, but it's more than that. The most moving part of the film is a subtext dealing with loneliness. Frank Serpico loses everything, beginning with his girl friend, up to and including his position on the police force. In the lingo of sociometry he'd be a social isolate. Nobody wants to have anything to do with him, except perhaps his family of whom we see little, or maybe an impotent friend who has Princetonian connections in the mayor's office.
Oh, it's tough to squeal on your comrades. We all know that. And Serpico suffers in the most saintly way, torn between loyalties to the group to which he belong and the greater values that inform (or are supposed to inform) our society. But what MAKES everything so difficult is that your best friends come to distrust and dislike you.
All of us root for Serpico's triumph. We want the NYPD to be cleaned out. (Is it?) But who among us would throw away the casual but still meaningful bonds that we make at work? Would you? I don't know if I would. That, it seems to me, is the principal theme of this movie. Police corruption is the MacGuffin.
First of all, what a picture of New York City, in all its grime and without any splendor. You could walk a dozen blocks and never be out of a crime scene. There's the Williamsberg Bridge (I think) and not much else in the way of landmarks. Nobody eats at Lutece. The whole place is thoroughly louche.
The acting, with the exception of Tony Roberts, is superior.
And -- maybe this hit me differently -- it seems to be a movie about police corruption, and of course it is, but it's more than that. The most moving part of the film is a subtext dealing with loneliness. Frank Serpico loses everything, beginning with his girl friend, up to and including his position on the police force. In the lingo of sociometry he'd be a social isolate. Nobody wants to have anything to do with him, except perhaps his family of whom we see little, or maybe an impotent friend who has Princetonian connections in the mayor's office.
Oh, it's tough to squeal on your comrades. We all know that. And Serpico suffers in the most saintly way, torn between loyalties to the group to which he belong and the greater values that inform (or are supposed to inform) our society. But what MAKES everything so difficult is that your best friends come to distrust and dislike you.
All of us root for Serpico's triumph. We want the NYPD to be cleaned out. (Is it?) But who among us would throw away the casual but still meaningful bonds that we make at work? Would you? I don't know if I would. That, it seems to me, is the principal theme of this movie. Police corruption is the MacGuffin.