A year before Al Pacino got his career role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather he and Kitty Winn got great reviews as a pair of junkies in The Panic In Needle Park. This film is a brutal and realistic look at the New York's nasty world of the narcotics addict as seen through Pacino and Winn.

Even in this world romance can bloom even among these folks on the bottom most rung of society. Still the need for the needle overrules all, a fact that narcotics cop like Jesse Vint exploits to the max.

Richard Bright who plays Pacino's older brother who is a burglar by trade and not a junkie delivers a good performance. My one criticism of he Panic In Needle Park is Bright's willingness to take Pacino in on a job. Any good burglar wouldn't rust a junkie even if he was family.

The scenes showing the heroin use are brutally realistic. One scene that jolted me was the efforts to save Pacino from a hot shot dose of pure heroin. Done by his fellow narcotics peers without any professional medical help.

Not much has changed in the junkie world in the intervening half a century since Needle Park came out. The real tragedy of this film.

"The Panic in Needle Park" is an incredibly unpleasant film...which is what you'd expect about a film that centers around two heroin addicts living in New York. So, if you are looking for a film to make you smile or a good date film, do NOT see this movie! In fact, that is the biggest problem with the picture...most folks won't wanna see two people slowly destroying themselves. Most folks watch films to be entertained. Now I am NOT saying it's a bad film and it might be a good one to show teens, as it shows how wretched a life hooked on drugs can be...though there are a few more recent films which make drug use seem a lot more unpleasant, such as the brilliant but hard to watch "Requiem for a Dream".

The film has very little in the way of plot. It simply shows two addicts who are in love, Bobby and Helen (Al Pacino and Kitty Winn), as they slowly degenerate...sinking lower and lower and lower through the course of the movie. At first, Bobby is very glib...and fun to be with and Helen seems rather innocent. Naturally, this doesn't last and both sink deeper and deeper into their habit. Bobby claims he's a 'chipper' (a casual user who is not addicted) but after a while he's dealing and overdoses. Helen begins turning tricks to buy their next fix.

Unpleasant, to be sure, but mostly realistic. When they shot up, it looks real...and the language is street language...nasty and crude. But the only problem I saw is that both LOOKED healthy through the course of the film and the makeup could have been better...enabling them not only to act like addicts but to look more like them. Well made but I am strongly warning you...it's not a movie for kids or for the squeamish.

The Panic In Needle Park is a gritty, often uncomfortable 110 mins in the company of lowlifes, pimps, prostitutes and dope addicts. *Possible Spoilers* The film itself is quite uncompromising, no morals, no redemption, just a street living couple who cannot decide whether they love smack or one another more. No doubt if this film was made today we'd have the rehabilitation programme and the tearful reunion once the two protagonists were 'clean' and ready to rejoin society. However, this is not for this film. The Panic In Needle Park is decidedly bleak, and offers us a slice of reality that not many of us see from our normal suburban lives. Jerry Schatzberg directs this movie with a documentary feel, and this, coupled with outstanding performances by Pacino and Winn, gives a very natural, flowing experience. Where Schatzberg did so well and many directors fail is in giving the viewer well sketched characters that you will genuinely get to know and empathize with, as you watch them flush their lives down the toilet. Of course it helps if you have Pacino and Winn playing them, and they really breathe life into the tragic lives of Bobby and Helen. Definitely one worth watching, unless you are depressed or have an aversion to seeing lengthy shots of half dead people putting dirty needles in their veins. But then I doubt heroin addiction is as hip as a sharp suited John Travolta jacking up and listening to cool tunes in Pulp Fiction.