Serpico/The Untouchables/Chinatown

Three classic crime movies. 'Serpico' (1973) is based on a true story and revolves around an undercover police officer, Frank Serpico (Al Pacino), who discovers that corruption is rife soon after joining the force.

Refusing the payoffs which have become accepted practice, the nonconformist Serpico finds himself spurned and harrassed by his fellow officers.

When the strain of performing his job honestly finally becomes too much, Serpico turns first to the disinterested police commission and finally to the New York Times to make his voice heard, and is forced to give evidence in the resulting investigation.

However, with the cops as well as the crooks now out for his blood, Serpico discovers that integrity comes at a very high price.

In 'The Untouchables' (1987), Kevin Costner stars as Eliot Ness, an idealistic Treasury official who vows to bring an end to Al Capone's (Robert De Niro) corrupt hold over Prohibition-era Chicago.

To this end, Ness puts together an elite team of law-enforcement officers (played by Sean Connery, Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith), and begins making bold strikes at Capone's bootlegging operation.

Nevertheless, Capone's empire continues to thrive, and Ness realises that he must try a different approach.

Finally, in 'Chinatown' (1974), private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired to follow water commissioner Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), only to see him turn up dead at the bottom of a reservoir.

Realising he has been used, Gittes confronts Mulwray's widow Evelyn (Faye Dunway), a woman who seems to have plenty of secrets of her own, not least her ambiguous relationship with her father Noah Cross (John Huston).