Customer Reviews
Slow, gritty and painful - By: B. W. Jenner, 18 Sep 2008 
I love this era in New York. Urban decay, cold, shabby flats, depressing neighbourhoods where characters struggle to survive. The lack of music makes the story feel like a documentary. Pacino is playful, charismatic & doomed, Kitty Winn is beautiful, abused & desperate. No redemption, just harrowing times.
Despite the hopelessness of the subject matter, it makes for a moving film. You feel sad that these things go on.
like a headache after smoking a stale cigarette... - By: H. Serkan SILAHSOR, 13 Oct 2007 
Before watching "The Panic in Needle Park" I had lots of lofty expectations due to at least two reasons: First, this is Al Pacino's first feature length film & his performance as an appealing but self-absorbed addict took Coppola's interest & elevated him "Godfather" stardom. "Panic" gave him enough chance to show his charisma, talent & depth as an actor. Second, being a controversial film in its day, this was the first time that an "urban addiction drama" hit the screen. In this sense, "Panic" can be seen as a precursor, or a perfect template later used by more flamboyant, graphic-intensive pictures like "Drugstore Cowboy", "Trainspotting", "Requiem for a Dream" & even "Gia".
The film focuses on the ups & downs of two doomed souls, Bobby & Helen, who wasted their lives in a downward spiral into hell without any realistic thought for tomorrow. The meaning of life is just to score, shoot, & survive, nothing more. The performances of Al Pacino & Kitty Winn are top notch. The role earned Winn the Best Actress Award at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. But contrary to strong individual performances, I found the romantic chemistry between them weak.
"Panic" has a bittersweet taste of an independent film: improvisational, free-form & razor-sharp realistic. There is no music throughout the film, only dialogues & real life sounds. It tastes like a stale cigarette. Depressive mood & sordidness of Manhattan's Upper West Side are reflected perfectly. Intense & disturbing depiction of heroine shots are almost documentary nature. Thankfully, there are no Hollywood sappiness to undermine the film's effectiveness. Schatzberg did a good job by not cuing viewer's moods, just letting the picture tell the story. The only downside is that it drags along at snails pace, sometimes it bored me a little & some scenes need trimming. The result is that some scenes feel largely extraneous, contributing not very much to the story.
To sum up, although it introduced us Al Pacino, it's moderately worthwhile & fallls short of being a classic. Normallly the film deserves 3.5 stars, but due to the shoddy nature of the DVD, I'm giving 3 stars.
panic in needle park, a forgotten classic of 70's cinema - By: , 13 Oct 2002 This recently re-released film is interesting in that it heralds the arrival on the big screen of Al Pacino, but also in the fact that Schatzberg's film is a pioneer in its depiction of drug addiction, which when seen in context of the time, reallly is an achievement on every level. This film offers no glamorisation & the escapism of populist 70s drug films, yet it also avoids sensationalism & overt melodrama, with its depiction of a simple relationship torn apart. It is easy to see how Pacino caught the attention of Coppola here, developing the alertness & depth of character which he was to develop under the following film & his subsequent career, yet this is not an easy film to watch. It is at times both gruelling & relentless, but when dealing with the subject that it does, & with such fantastic performances from both its leads, this is a film to grab while you can.
