The Panic in Needle Park

Not bad, not bad. It's an interesting 70s naturalist picture, done pretty well across the board, but it's not terribly compelling or insightful, and for the most part, doesn't really manage to rise above any conventions of its genre. It's mostly interesting as a historical footnote: Al Pacino's first feature-film performance, and he's pretty good here. If you like naturalism, Al Pacino, and movies about seedy urban areas/drug culture, check it out.

To me, the defining movies of the 70's New Hollywood were these realist movies, like this one. Needle Park is far from being one of the best but it's in the idiom and it's very good. Schatzberg himself outdid this two years later, with Scarecrow.

Unfussy and authentically felt, this carefully builds up a stark empathy for these two characters and their circling patterns of highs and lows ... and, boy, does this film erode their likeability as it progresses, though through this thoughtful characterisation shows how their bad impulsive decisions lead to such horrendous mistakes on their part.

I like the way you can almost smell the streets. What really works here is the coupling of Pacino's hyperactivity and Winn's solemn attitude. Rest is... but you have already seen that.

I watched it because of it's name, but unfortunately you don't see this Needle Park or a remarkable panic in any point of the film..

An early herald of the decade of revitalized American cinema, and the introduction to one of its most important revelations: Al Pacino. It is an intimate and low-key film, realist, raw and unromanticized. These characters are pitiful and disappointing. This was a formative viewing experience of my adolescence, and it remains one of the most effective films of its particular era.

Gritty and raw. Just as you'd picture New York in the 1970s

10.16 Hobbit

Very sad people in a very bleak drama. Gus Van Sant before Gus Van Sant.

'It's been a long time since we laughed about anything.' A very realistic and well made film about heroin addicts in New York. Appropriately unpleasant to watch. Young Al Pacino and Kitty Winn both give excellent performances as a junkie couple whose relationship becomes less and less healthy as the movie progresses.

Well?

Pacino playing a heroin addict just looks like Korine in the 90s

"What do you want me to say? It's from Tangiers? It's from Tangiers." Pacino's first great performance. He's so endearing. Richard Bright is wonderfully sleazy. I pray for the day someone asks me how I'm taking it, so I can respond "slowww baby"

Exactly what early 70s cinema should be. Pacino is just so compelling to watch.

A insight into the lives of a couple, New York Junkies in the 1970's, Bobby and Helen. It portrays the brutally realistic bleakness that gives you a view into the underbelly of the small-time New York heroin trade, and is excellent document of the the ignominy of 72th and Broadway street. A layer of authenticity is added with the great performance of Al Pacino; and the absence of a film score which accentuates the despondency and cozened nature of the relationships that junkies share in common.

Pacino is good, Winn even better in this pretty good but predictable ultra-raw early 70s drug addiction movie.

It's bleak, to be sure. Schatzberg manages to find a few moments of connection and beauty in the midst of human degradation.Kitty Winn's expressiveness is a real boon to the film. In general, the movie is completely predictable, but the realist approach offers (what was at the time) a freshness to the film.

Outside of the graphic needle scenes, I have no real complaints about this movie. I appreciate the lack of a score, but it wouldn't belong here in any case. On the other hand there's nothing spectacular about this film either.

71.125

Superb. An unflinching look at addiction, Schatzberg's camera puts you directly in the action, producing a brutally realistic picture that never holds back. I know I'll never become a heroin addict after seeing this.

Painfully accurate and equally hard to watch. Gave me the cold sweats and anxiety just seeing it... I wonder if my guy has anything.

Excellent.

(ótimo)

a fairly unlikeable smackhead who is in love with himself then falls in love with someone else - a nice quiet girl. The girl then becomes a smackhead herself, on account of the lifestyle being so fun and happening. They then live happily ever after - oh, wait...

An unrelenting, all too real look into the life of an addict set in 70's New York. The experience of hopelessness, desperation and frustration displayed by Al Pacino rivals that of Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickel in "Taxi Driver". This is a film that will stick with you.

A guide map to what miserable life is. Now I can see where inspiration for "Candy" is coming from.

Intense view of the 60s & 70s drug scene made hypnotic by flawless performances from Pacino and Winn, marvellously capturing the heartbreaking, hopeless, ultimately pathetic lives of the characters, while a gritty, documentary style approach to filming creates an unsentimental tone -- only heightening its emotional impact. Unnecessarily graphic depictions of the drug taking itself, and a third act which feels a little unfocused and repetitive, are the only problems in otherwise excellent drama.

reality.

A solid work that is very much in line with a lot of the trailblazing that was going on in American film at the time. If I've learned anything from early-70s works like this, it's that New York City used to really dirty. Every shot on the street always has some pile of garbage just off to the side of a building. While it started to get a little bombastic with its tragic expression of the lives of a heroin-addicted couple, it managed to finish itself off with an inspired and appropriate ending.

Still feels incredibly fresh and real. The naturalistic staging, the shattering performances by Kitty Winn and Pacino, the spare and uncluttered script - it's damn near perfect. Holds up better than most of its imitators. One of the great 70s NYC movies as well.

An early junkie love story, I can't say that I was particularly impressed by anything in it except to find out that Raul Julia was thirty at the time.