Amazon.com Essentials:
Tony Manero (John Travolta) in Saturday Night
Fever and Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) in Boogie Nights have
one major thing in common: They both have posters of Al Pacino as
Serpico on their bedroom walls. As the real-life NYPD detective whose
integrity cost him virtually everything (and almost cost him his
life), Pacino became one of the icons of gritty, realistic 1970s
filmmaking. Released in 1973, between the first two Godfather
movies, this is the true story of Frank Serpico, a long-haired,
idealistic, iconoclastic cop who reluctantly goes undercover to
investigate dirty colleagues who are on the take. This is one of the
definitive Pacino performances, along with his role as Michael
Corleone in the Godfather saga, and Sonny the bungling bank
robber in Dog Day
Afternoon (which reunited him with his Serpico director,
Sidney Lumet)--and Pacino was nominated for a best actor Oscar for all
of them (although he wouldn't actually win until 1992's Scent of a Woman).
--Jim Emerson
