ken_ramsey

This is an excellent movie. Alec Baldwin puts in one of his best efforts, but he's upstaged by Michael Jai White who just runs away with it in the colorful role of Pointy Williams. Pointy is one of the most refreshing film characters I've stumbled across in quite a while. He's a gangster who is trying to improve himself socially and take on upper class and intellectual airs. He's surrounded of course by rough and tumble urban ghetto thugs and the realities of running a brutal criminal enterprise, so Pointy is constantly frustrated at this by every turn. The film is not a comedy, it's crime drama, but a infectiously quirky one with lots of laughs, especially when Pointy comes around.

The film, and especially Pointy, are extremely quotable. This is a great film in every way. I'm surprised it does not have a bigger following.

Serpico has very little going for it. It is an extremely boring and tedious film. It is noteworthy for its grittiness, but that's not compelling enough to invest the time.

A great deal of the film is devoted to characterizing the main character, Serpico, with many subplots and scenes that lead to nowhere in particular. And, surprisingly given all the energy and effort to breathe life into this character and given Al Pacino's talents, the character remains rather flat and one dimensional throughout. He's an honest cop caught up in a corrupt system that views him as a threat. You probably knew that going in. A good chunk of the film has us watching him having girl trouble, having fun with pets, going to a big party, strangely doing ballet moves in the precinct, riding a motorcycle, exploding in rage, etc., for no clear reason. He's not terribly likable by the end, either, having alienated what few friends he does have, again for no clear reason. His actions are almost entirely emotive, primitive, and illogical plus tinged with childish motives.

Supporting characters come and go, a lot, and some of them are engaging at first. But they are routinely discarded and left undeveloped.

There are very few action scenes, unless you count a raging Pacino as an action scene. One of the action moments (the fire-escape caper) is hilariously improbable, poorly written, and executed with shockingly badly direction. The movie is very slowly paced. Boredom abounds.

The film ends in bizarre fashion that undercuts Serpico's tenacity, which is one of the few admirable qualities he does carry throughout the film. He basically punches out. Why now? After all this drama?