Serpico (1973)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
New York cop Frank Serpico blows the whistle on the rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.
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What critics compared Serpico to
A flashy big-budget studio gangster flick that could be viewed as a combination of the black "Scarface" and the Jewish "Serpico."
American Gangster reminds one of The French Connection, The Godfather, Scarface; some have called it Super Fly vs. Serpico -- the list could go on and on, really.
This aspect of American Gangster , plus its 70s New York and New Jersey urban settings, make it evoke The French Connection and Serpico more than The Godfather or Goodfellas .
It's half Serpico and half Goodfellas, telling parallel stories of Frank Lucas (Washington)'s rise to dominance in the drug trade in the '70s, and Detective Richie Roberts' pursuit of Lucas.
The sense that we've seen all this before is inevitable in a film that ripples with references to "Serpico," "Scarface" and "The Godfather."
Movie goers who long for the days of Serpico will be gladdened by the many reminders here, including skuzzy cops on the take (Josh Brolin, a riot of pomade) and cut portions of French Connection powder.
The American director James Gray also has made this kind of sideways homage, channeling the gangster pictures of Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola and the big city thrillers of Sidney Lumet ("Serpico"), with a more meditative pace.
As we go deeper into it, we're reminded of the films of the late Sidney Lumet, the Big Apple's master spinner of cops 'n' robbers tales (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead).
You would think a film entitled “A Most Violent Year” would bring suspense and action to its intriguing premise, but instead it stubbornly insists on slowing things down to the point that you start thinking about similar films, the Sydney Lumet classic, “Serpico,” for example.
J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year is a most curious movie, one with nearly all the elements of a classic crime-family saga and yet somehow lacking the moral complexity and emotional heft of the films to which it pays fastidious aesthetic homage: the New York–set urban thrillers of Sidney Lumet ( Serpico , Prince of the City ) and Coppola’s Godfather series.
The beautifully lensed ("Selma" DP Bradford Young), atmospheric period movie calls up such Sidney Lumet classics as "Prince of the City" and "Serpico."
Nearly every review of "A Most Violent Year" has mentioned the influence of Sidney Lumet, who captured this era in the Big Apple in films such as "Prince of the City" and "Serpico."
Like Al Pacino in "Serpico" and Russell Crowe in "L.A. Confidential," Nick is the departmental rebel who always runs afoul of the system.
As stark and cold as its wintry Detroit backdrop (it’s somewhat disappointing to learn that the film was actually filmed in Toronto), Narc earns comparison to landmark ‘70s police thrillers like The French Connection and Serpico—films that had style and energy to spare but were more interested in pursuing the minds of their characters than creating elaborate action sequences.
It joins Rush (which also starred Patric), The Onion Field, Serpico, Seven, The French Connection, Traffic, and Prince of the City as a grimy, hyper-real exploration of the emotional and psychological prices paid by cops.
Although much in the same vein as Serpico or LA Confidential, this film from writer/director Joe Carnahan (Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane) overplays its dramatic twists.
Narc's presentation of cops and the crooks they arrest is similar to what Sidney Lumet with Prince of the City or Serpico.
Which is not to say that this one comes close to matching the standard of excellence set by such classics as "The French Connection" and "Serpico."
Phillips’ greatest trick is making Joker look like a gritty character study from the 1970s, inspired by the films of Martin Scorsese ( Taxi Driver ), William Friedkin ( The French Connection ) and Sidney Lumet ( Network , Serpico ) but it’s nothing more than a poor imitation.
The films he’s referring to are “Serpico,” “Taxi Driver,” and “Network.”
Set in the late-1970s/early-80s hinterland, Phillips pays obvious tribute to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy , as well as including notes from The French Connection and Serpico .
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De hecho, apunta asuntos de ambos: la obsesión por la ausencia del padre y su marca indeleble en el caso del autor de La noche es nuestra; y la carga social, la purga de los pecados, la inevitabilidad del castigo y la rebeldía en el fango del creador de Serpico y El príncipe de la ciudad.
A tight, chase-based ripper, 21 Bridges feels like something the great Sidney Lumet ( Serpico ; Dog Day Afternoon ; Prince of the City ) would have made back in the 1970s.
In its attempt to combine various heist flicks and classics like Serpico and Infernal Affairs with 'big themes', it lacks the focus to maintain a gripping momentum.
Few cop dramas even try to equal Sidney Lumet’s classic Serpico, made in 1973 and still the leader of the pack as an exploration of police corruption.
It’s an interesting idea, and it certainly has some real-life precedent; Serpico (which is referenced during some dialog in this movie) is just one example.
“Broken City” squanders a way-too-good cast in a meandering, not very compelling cop-and-political corruption story that plays like a half-hearted homage to Sidney Lumet’s ’70s crime thrillers like “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Prince of the City.”
Brian Tucker’s screenplay is within genuflecting distance of Serpico, Prince of the City and other gritty-good New York films directed by Sidney Lumet.
But even when they didn’t work, those movies — Serpico, Prince of the City, Power, Q & A, Night Falls on Manhattan — had an electric charge.
Sidney Lumet has been making movies for 50 years, and though his track record is spotty, the man who directed Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network generally deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Sidney Lumet is certainly an expert in train-wreck crime dramas, having served up such classics as Dog Day Afternoon , Serpico and Prince of the City , as well as other stellar efforts such as 12 Angry Men , Network and The Verdict .
Now 83, the legendary director had lost his way in recent years; the epic moral street scenes of "Dog Day Afternoon," "Serpico," and "Prince of the City" seemed to have given way to a long run of mediocrity, from 1993's "Guilty as Sin" to 2006's "Find Me Guilty."
Rather, his movie harkens back to the days of his greatest successes -- Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network -- and reminds one of the days when clever and smart were not mutually exclusive from one another.
Sidney Lumet has made some of the greatest films of the modern era, stellar works with titles like Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict.
Despite an accumulated 83 years and 45 movies under his belt, including Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network, director Sidney Lumet would seem to be a late-blooming iconoclast.
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He is shown leading the debate society, the fencing club, the French club, the chess club, and the "Max Fischer Players," who perform wildly inappropriate dramatizations of such films as Serpico to undiscriminating audiences.
Besides heading an assortment of teams (fencing, wrestling, double-team dodge ball) and clubs (debate, backgammon, French, German, chess) Max has even founded the Max Fischer Players, who enact with passion and precision Max's ambitious stage adaptations of "Serpico" and the Vietnam epic "Heaven and Earth."
He's mounted a production of Serpico with the Max Fischer Players.
(The first one we see him staging is derived from the 1973 movie Serpico.)
He runs every possible extracurricular club at Rushmore, and he puts on unintentionally hilarious plays, adapted from movies like ‘Serpico” and ‘Platoon.”
The testosterone teaming goes straight to hell with the priest character played by Édgar Ramírez (Carlos), a chain-smoking and whiskey-guzzling padre who seems to be channelling Serpico-era Al Pacino.
It stemmed from an idea of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's to make a movie that merged Serpico (1973) with The Exorcist (1973).