Sidney Lumet | 125 mins | TV | 1.85:1 | Italy & USA / English | 18 / R
Before Murder on the Orient Express or Dog Day Afternoon, Sidney Lumet directed this true story about a New York cop battling corruption.
Noting it’s a true story, it certainly has a biographical feel. That came as a bit of a surprise, to me at least — I was expecting a thriller about a good cop exposing the corrupt ones, but instead got Frank Serpico’s life story from the time he left training on. It’s not as if it just deals with his professional career — say, showing how his early days formed his moral compass, or something — there’s lots of screen time devoted to his personal relationships too, which may or may not have been relevant to his work. More than a corrupt cop thriller, it’s a biopic about someone involved in that world.
This focus on reality begs one question: just how much is it based in the truth? It makes an uncommonly high claim to reality by including all this near-extraneous detail, but typically “true life” stories, especially those made quickly after the real events, fictionalise things for one reason or another. It wouldn’t matter if it didn’t effect the quality of the film, but I think it does: it feels a bit sloppy at times; kind of disjointed. The timeline jumps forward almost at random; things occasionally seem to go by half explained; there’s no clear throughline… This all plays into the feeling of it being like real life, where nothing — certainly not a police investigation — is as simple or straightforward as it’s usually made out to be for the movies. Which has its pros and its cons.
As the titular copper, it’s a typically strong performance from Al Pacino. Not his best work — I don’t think the part really gives him enough to deliver that — but he’s more often than not the most engaging element of the film. This was his fifth film; considering The Godfather was just his third, and he followed this up with Part II and Dog Day Afternoon, it’s easy to see why he’s long been regarded as a Great Actor.
I feel like Serpico used to come up fairly often as a minor classic; the kind of film not a lot of people have seen these days but many more should have; but I don’t feel like I hear it mentioned any more. Obviously this is just a perception and maybe it’s a load of rubbish, but I’m afraid I side a little more with the latter-day less-mentioned side of things.
I would say it feels rather worthy, at least in part for the things I’ve mentioned about its claims to truth. It’s an interesting, sometimes compelling film, but I wouldn’t say I enjoyed or liked it. “Enjoy” is an awkward word — you wouldn’t typically say you “enjoy” Schindler’s List, but you do (you could say) enjoy its greatness. I didn’t enjoy Serpico in the way you would typically say you enjoyed something; nor did I enjoy it in a Schindler’s List way; nor did I really admire it, again for the reasons levelled above. But it has elements of interest nonetheless.
Lewis Gilbert is the director of 
The standout from the cast is probably Julie Walters, in a relatively early big-screen role. Considering how well-known she is now she seems quite lowly billed and little-featured, but bearing in mind this is a US production from the early ’90s, it’s less surprising. She’s very good (isn’t she always?) as the group’s newest member, a posh English lady who sticks her oar in and is a bit too blunt with her comments. I seem to remember her generating most of the laughs in this comedy-drama, although that’s not to disparage anyone else’s work.
James Mangold is one of those filmmakers with a thoroughly eclectic CV, taking in crime thriller 
Knight and Day is nothing deep or revelatory or groundbreaking, but if you were expecting it to be then more fool you. If you can’t abide Cruise or Diaz (and I know some people really can’t) then it should certainly be avoided, but those caveats aside I thought it was good fun. No classic, and far from destined to be a standout on Mangold’s multi-Oscar-winning filmography, but an appropriately entertaining couple of hours.
Gnomeo & Juliet is the latest British attempt to crack the lucrative CGI animated kids’ movie market, after the lack of success (or, alternatively, failure) from the likes of 
My only other note is that it ends with a truly awful cover of Crocodile Rock by Nelly Furtado. A storyboarded “all’s well that ends well” ending (included on the BD, and the DVD for all I know) looks much better.
Following the surprise success of 
Hitler (aka Bruno Ganz) and a cool exit; a really good car chase; and a couple of solid punch-ups, including a particularly good one at the climax.
A venture into the increasingly-popular CG family film market from Universal, Despicable Me is about a supervillain who comes to question his evil ways. It was released the same year as the similarly-themed 
The film’s country is officially listed as USA because it’s made with American money, but it feels more like a French production (albeit dubbed with US voices). Look at those directors’ names (though only Coffin is French — Renaud is actually American); it was made entirely in a French studio (Mac Guff in Paris); and it has a kind of feel that doesn’t seem like it came from a US studio. So while technically, yes, it’s American, I don’t think the French side should be wholly ignored. I’m not saying it makes it bad, but perhaps it lessens the apparent superhero feel — that’s a very American genre, after all.
Despite that aim, these aren’t glaring holes that desperately need a fix. Rather they’re join-the-dots enterprises; the thing most people won’t have noticed at all, that fans may have wondered about, that it’s more fun to connect up than strictly necessary. It makes this piece resolutely fan-only — while it’s quite good, it’s more admin than a story in its own right, showing how various films connect together in the lead-up to 
It’s a standalone piece, and though it’s brief (under three minutes before the credits role), it still manages to add quite a lot to the character of Agent Coulson, who in the main films to this point has been a minor (albeit increasingly major) supporting role. I suppose it’s fitting that Clark Gregg has been the star of these connecting shorts, as he’s one of the main links across the films (he appears in 
Quite outside of the Falcon film series, this third entry is notable for being the first screen adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel. Ditching Chandler’s then-unknown Philip Marlowe in favour of the Falcon in the lead role, this is a version of the character’s second mystery, Farewell, My Lovely — which would be 
As usual, it doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi that makes the Saint films particularly entertaining (yeah, you know I mean wit); and I can well believe it has “
The second Falcon film sees George Sanders’ gentlemen detective investigate the disappearance of a scientist.
Anyway, aside from him there’s a ‘suicide’ bid and the crowd below’s reaction to it. Again it’s mostly comedy, but unlike some of the series’ DOA running gags it’s actually funny.
Worried about the cost of renewing the licence to popular hero the Saint, RKO instead acquired Michael Arlen’s the Falcon and essentially modelled him as a replacement, much to the chagrin of Saint creator Leslie Charteris. And who can blame him? They even cast the star of the Saint, George Sanders. Cheeky.
The story (the only one in the series adapted from a work by Arlen) is a solid mystery about jewellery thieves, which doesn’t seem to have quite the scale of the Saint films. Those were often contained to one city, but they felt somehow grander, like the schemes being foiled were of broad significance; here, it’s basically work for the police. To put it another way, if there was always the sensation that the Saint was an anterior James Bond, you could say the Falcon is more like Sherlock Holmes.
The Gay Falcon makes for solid enough entertainment, mixing thrills with humour to decent effect. But despite attempts to emulate it, not least with the same leading man and woman, it’s no the Saint — they’ve not injected Gay Laurence with quite the same way with words and the supporting cast lacks a Teal or ‘Pearly’ Gates type to really make it click. Whether future entries stray further from Arlen’s original and more into Saint territory, or not, remains to be seen.
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