Sidney Lumet's search for sticky fingers in the NYPD is so blindered in its vision of police life (cops spend most of their working hours making collections, evidently), and Al Pacino's voyage into disillusionment, hippie grooming, and institutional boat-rocking is so swift and smooth and nudged along by the lugubrious music of Theodorakis, that the game appears to have been rigged. In a movie that affects naturalism (the washed-out colors, the authentic faces and places), the thorough dominance of virtues over vices in Pacino's plump character seems awfully indulgent, especially alongside the stick figures who otherwise fill up the movie. The caricatures of petty bureaucrats are often fun, though, and the portrayal of intellectual differences, leading straightaway to voice-raisings and chair-kickings, is very enlivening. (1973) — Duncan Shepherd
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