Serpico (1973)

Director: Sidney Lumet
Writer: Screenplay: Waldo Salt, Norman Wexler Novel: Peter Maas
Cast: Al Pacino, John Randolph, Jack Kehoe, Biff McGuire, Barbara Eda-Young, Cornelia Sharpe
Genre: Bio, Drama, Crime

Serpico tells the story of a cop fighting the corrupt cops around him. Al Pacino leads as Frank Serpico in Sidney Lumet's movie based on the true story of the life Serpico had to live as a honest cop among everyone on the take.

Al Pacino is great in the lead, and he's one of the biggest reasons this story stands so well almost forty years later. It's also a groundbreaking police movie on corruption, and we've later on seen this portrayed a lot on both the big screen and in TV-shows.

We get to follow Serpico from his early days out of the academy, and into the street clothes units as undercover cop. We also get to see the effects of his pressure, as his personal life suffers, his colleagues discredit him and he always are in danger of being set-up by dirty cops as well as the bad guys he chases.

Serpico is another great piece of work by both Pacino and Lumet. Highly recommendable.