Panico a Needle Park

When I first saw this film, Al Pacino was an unknown actor, yet to play in the Godfather. I usually just enjoy the movie, but I was surprised by how fine an actor the star was. I wondered why I had never seen this guy before.

Pacino has made many fine films, but this one is actually one of his best..and very few people have ever heard of it. It used to be available on VHS, but has been out of print now for about twenty years. I was finally able to get a very expensive used copy from an internet vendor specializing in hard to get film.

I just hope that this comes out in DVD.

This is probably one of Al Pacino's best films. I would say that it is even better then "The Godfather" because you almost want to reach out and help the characters but you can't. They all have the same problem. That problem is heroin addiction and it has caused a multitude of problems in their lives. This is a great film. It is usually not shown on television (I did see it on PBS a few years ago but I think that was a rare exception) I think however, because of its realistic content most stations try not to air it. If you can find it on video I highly recommend it.

This is one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. It is very real and grisly looking, not polished with the horrible artificial lighting you see nowadays in films. Bobby and Helen are addicts whose lives are going nowhere, they just can't get out of their destructive lifestyle. The scenes of the characters shooting up, tricking, and hanging in the brutal streets of 1970's New York are very realistic. Makes "Trainspotting" look like a Disney cartoon.

A year before Al Pacino got his career role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather he and Kitty Winn got great reviews as a pair of junkies in The Panic In Needle Park. This film is a brutal and realistic look at the New York's nasty world of the narcotics addict as seen through Pacino and Winn.

Even in this world romance can bloom even among these folks on the bottom most rung of society. Still the need for the needle overrules all, a fact that narcotics cop like Jesse Vint exploits to the max.

Richard Bright who plays Pacino's older brother who is a burglar by trade and not a junkie delivers a good performance. My one criticism of he Panic In Needle Park is Bright's willingness to take Pacino in on a job. Any good burglar wouldn't rust a junkie even if he was family.

The scenes showing the heroin use are brutally realistic. One scene that jolted me was the efforts to save Pacino from a hot shot dose of pure heroin. Done by his fellow narcotics peers without any professional medical help.

Not much has changed in the junkie world in the intervening half a century since Needle Park came out. The real tragedy of this film.

One of the rawest images of drug addiction ever shown in a movie ! "Drugstore cowboy" and "trainspotting" turn into cartoons by seeing this film. Pacino and Wynn : what an impressive performance. One of the best ever ! The film shows a horrifying image of the junk life in the city of New York in the seventies. This motion picture does not have the sparkling colors and action, of expensive Hollywood productions nowadays and that is just the beauty of it ! It's the brutal reality that makes us realize what harder drugs can do to a persons life. Every fourteen year old kid should see this film because of the damage hard drugs can do. Forgive me, English is not my native language i hope people understand what i am trying to say. Anyway great movie and it should be better known ! What in the name happened to Jerry Schatzberg ?