Panico a Needle Park

The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

Wow. This is as close as American Hollywood gets to cinema verite. The way it's filmed, the subject matter itself, and the acting by the whole cast, especially the two leading actors, is astonishing and gripping. Like many reality-based stories, this one lacks only a driving narrative thread. As disturbing and terrific as it is, it also gets slow, and could have been edited down with the same effect.

But less of it. By that I mean, if you can just settle into this world of 1970 heroin abuse in New York City, with close ups of shooting up and some very convincing rushes and rides, with squalor and hopelessness and indifference, with prostituting and stealing and a wide cast of people down and out, you'll want it to keep going. There is nothing quite like this movie, even as it lacks propulsion.

Al Pacino is so good, so convincing, as Bobby, you can almost picture the movie is a documentary and this slightly charming junkie is a real guy who was willing to be filmed. His girlfriend Helen played by Kitty Winn is also perfect, at first as a kind of tagalong who isn't comfortable with this world but who seems to have nowhere else to go so she sticks with Bobby. But she falls into the lifestyle, and her clean innocence is gradually worn down, almost before our eyes, and the two of them go through all the stages of addiction and desperation. They have no money, they sometimes have nowhere to live, but they stumble along, stealing or pulling tricks (sexual ones) to get their fix.

If anyone harbors any sense that heroin must be terrific, watch this movie. Even the famous euphoric rush is so internal it can't be appreciated, and people on their several hour high just seem to be sleepy all the time. And then the rest of their lives are absolute hell. I guess you don't care about everything else, so it may as well be hell, but from the outside, it's something to avoid.

And in that sense, the movie is perfect. It is so truthfully frank it's a masterpiece of some kind of cinema that we could use more of, but which is so raw and unappealing you can see why there isn't more. It's not a fun movie. And when it does get a little slow and repetitive you might even give up on it, or zone out like one of its characters. But watch at least part of it to appreciate what's been done. Here's the great Pacino in his first major role (and his second film), and Winn (also her second film) in an award winning performance.

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.

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 ?

Sherman Square is in NYC on the West Side at the intersection of Broadway and 72nd Street. It is known as Needle Park for its heroin addicts. Petty criminal addict Bobby (Al Pacino) is a friend to artist Marco (Raul Julia). Helen (Kitty Winn) is in the hospital after a bad abortion from relations with Marco. She is homeless and looking to go back to Indiana. She moves in with Bobby and slowly drifts into the dark world of drugs.

This is very 70's. It's indie. It's grim and it's grimy. The two leads are compelling. It doesn't flinch away from the needle work. It's not pretty Hollywood but rather an ugly closeup vision. It is a bit slow and the plot meanders. There is a grinding inevitability to their predicament. It wallows in the gutter.

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.