The trouble is that you're treating Serpico has a 'standard' police procedural like Bullitt or Dirty Harry, when in fact is a very detailed docu-drama that recounts an important event in the history of the NYPD and battle against institutional corruption.
The story has more heart than you give it credit for, with a justifiable character arc of the Serpico character, as his illusions of what it is to be a cop is slowly whittled away, his rigid morality causing him to lose his lover, his friends, his co-workers, and his faith in the system. Eventually when he does receive his badge in hospital (which in reality never happened), he realizes what an empty and foolish achievement it was. The badge means nothing when the system behind it is broken. Because then the badge, faith in the law, is meaningless.
Serpico is more relevant today than ever, and the story has more than enough weight behind it to justify it's slight dramatic detachment or "lack of cohesiveness" as you put it. It feels like a slew of great scenes, loosely connected by a single premise, but that is just due to the nature of the story and the style that Lumet was going for. So if you're not interested in the history of the subject or the thematic material behind it, I can see how Serpico might not be your cup of tea.
Limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: directly proportional to its awesomeness.
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GuyOnTheLeft
10 years ago
I kinda think you're barking up the wrong tree, at least in your opening sentence there. I have not seen Bullitt or Dirty Harry. Perusing my Flickchart list (linked in my sig below), I find only two films in my top 200 that feature police officers as the primary protagonists: L.A. Confidential and Training Day. (Arguably, one might also include a trio of Coen Brothers movies that are among my favourites: No Country For Old Men, True Grit, and Fargo.)
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See a list of my favourite films here: http://www.flickchart.com/slackerinc
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ave_roma2004
9 years ago
And Training Day was a typical action flick about a corrupt cop, a rookie, the good guy wins, the bad guy dies. No one cares.
If you want a good cop movie with horrible cliches like Training Day, but with a much more gray overtone, then The Corrupter would be up your alley.
This isn't supposed to be a movie about a dramatic sequence of events, climaxes, etc. It's a realistic telling of a dramatic story. A story which happens to be true. Go watch something else.
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