Movie: "Serpico"
Feb. 5th, 2006 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebYesterday, Robin and I watched the movie "Serpico," based on a true story from the 1960s. It's about a police officer who got a job in a department where all the cops were corrupt. And I'm not exaggerating: when he wouldn't take kickbacks himself, he marked himself as someone no other cop could trust.
The movie is about him trying to find a way to just do his job properly. It's a good movie, it survives the decades well, and it helped Al Pacino get famous.
The movie has been staying with me, like I wouldn't expect. And it's because I'm trying to imagine what happened in the aftermath of what they showed in the movie. What if you tried to get rid of the corruption? How could you do it? Everyone was involved. You can't just fire the entire police force.
Let's say you just fire the higher ups and have a new zero-toleration policy. Some of the police would be relieved of course, and be able to do fine. But they were used to getting a much higher income than you can get from a police paycheck alone. In the movie, everyone in one place was getting an extra $800 per month. In the 'sixties! And in another place, that was considered small change. How did all those people adjust to that kind of cut in income? Some probably had accumulated savings. Many must have lived paycheck to paycheck anyway.
How did they deal with family and friends finding out about the corruption? How did their relationships evolve with people they had worked with in the community? Especially people they used to collect money from. I can't imagine.
I also wondered what happened to Serpico. He could be murdered. He could be bitter. He could have killed himself. Hidden out with a new identity. I found The Official Frank Serpico Website to be interesting. He's back in the U.S., helping people fight corruption, both by police and in other areas. He's a little more paranoid than I ever want to be, but not crazy. He's also still learning all kinds of interesting things, like Argentine tango. From my brief perusal of the site, I feel like he's doing okay.
The movie is about him trying to find a way to just do his job properly. It's a good movie, it survives the decades well, and it helped Al Pacino get famous.
The movie has been staying with me, like I wouldn't expect. And it's because I'm trying to imagine what happened in the aftermath of what they showed in the movie. What if you tried to get rid of the corruption? How could you do it? Everyone was involved. You can't just fire the entire police force.
Let's say you just fire the higher ups and have a new zero-toleration policy. Some of the police would be relieved of course, and be able to do fine. But they were used to getting a much higher income than you can get from a police paycheck alone. In the movie, everyone in one place was getting an extra $800 per month. In the 'sixties! And in another place, that was considered small change. How did all those people adjust to that kind of cut in income? Some probably had accumulated savings. Many must have lived paycheck to paycheck anyway.
How did they deal with family and friends finding out about the corruption? How did their relationships evolve with people they had worked with in the community? Especially people they used to collect money from. I can't imagine.
I also wondered what happened to Serpico. He could be murdered. He could be bitter. He could have killed himself. Hidden out with a new identity. I found The Official Frank Serpico Website to be interesting. He's back in the U.S., helping people fight corruption, both by police and in other areas. He's a little more paranoid than I ever want to be, but not crazy. He's also still learning all kinds of interesting things, like Argentine tango. From my brief perusal of the site, I feel like he's doing okay.