Evan Popplestone’s review published on Letterboxd:
As much as I love some of Sidney Lumet's other films (especially 12 Angry Men, The Offence and Network), I find Serpico to be rather overrated. It's a well-made but flabby and overlong adaptation of Peter Maas's biography of Frank Serpico, an Italian-American NYPD officer who took a stand against the endemic corruption in his department. It's also very pseudo-liberal 1970s in its attitudes in the sense that it acknowledges the existence of women, non-whites and so on, while inevitably banishing them to the periphery of the story.
Nonetheless, it's worth watching for Al Pacino's explosive performance. The manner in which his character is sent ever-deeper into social alienation because of his lone, noble stand is also chillingly well portrayed.
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