Top to Bottom: Al Pacino

1.

Officer Frank Serpico

Serpico (1973)

“What's this for? For being an honest cop? Hmm? Or for being stupid enough to get shot in the face? You tell them that they can shove it.”

I know I am all alone on this, but Pacino’s performance in Serpico is as good as there has ever been. He is so intense and electrifying at times, yet incredibly tender and smooth in other scenes. This is his most complete performance. It is basically a one-man Pacino show the entire movie, and his presence and energy are able to make this seemingly standard biopic become one of the most inspiring and gripping movies I have ever seen. Serpico is a character that definitely has his flaws, but Pacino is so good that it is impossible to not identify with him. I cannot see this performance being passed up. This was right in the middle of the prime of Pacino’s career, and this performance as much as any established him as one of the best actors Hollywood has ever seen.