What Are The Ethical Issues In The Movie Serpico

The Film “Serpico” starring Al Pacino, Follows the career of a fresh face rookie cop from his graduation at the academy to the unfortunate end of his career. Based on a true story, Serpcio discovers that he is one of the very few officers within the New York City Police Department who has no interest in accepting under the table money or participating in unethical and illegal behavior. This film highlights many errors of the NYPD in the 1960’s. It shows that at this time the police were not held to a high standard of integrity or accountability. That laziness and greediness were the 2 words best used to describe many officers at the time. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie Serpico and his field training officer were on patrol and received a call of a rape in progress. Serpico expressed his desire to take the call due to the proximity of it. However, his FTO was more occupied with sleeping on the job and used the excuse of it being out of their beat. This was the first time we witnessed a lack of accountability in the film. A few short minutes later we see an officer in charge beating up the suspect Serpico caught on his foot chase during the call. Serpico declines to join in because he doesn’t believe in that kind of behavior. Instead of beating the suspect Serpico decides to take a …show more content…
Throughout the film he refused bribes and instead focused on bringing to light the horrible things going on throughout the department. Serpico was not just a grade A cop, he was a grade A person who held himself to the highest standard. He always tried to do the right thing even when every officer in the department turned on him and wanted nothing to do with him. He believed in real police work and that the job was about helping others and not themselves. This almost costed him his life when he was shot in the face due to 2 cops hesitating to