Film Review : DOG DAY AFTERNOON * * * *

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

CAST Al Pacino, John Cazale, Chris Sarandon, Charles durning, Carol Kane

DIRECTOR Sidney Lumet

Dog Day Afternoon is based on a real incident that took place in Brooklyn in 1972. Watching this Sidney Lumet masterpiece is like watching the real events that took place, or at least how one would percieve these events would have taken place.

Al Pacino stars as Sonny, a bisexual man who plans on robbing a bank to get his boy friend money for a sex change operation. His sidekick Sal (played by John Cazale in his best screen performance), is a borderline psycho with an itchy trigger finger. their plans get foiled when an insurance salesman across the street notices smoke coming out of the bank. Before the two would be bank robbers are able to get away, they are surrounded by New York's finest. This sets up the rest of the movie, which deals with hostage negotiations, relatives trying to talk Sonny in to giving up, and Sonny and Sal becoming close with the bank employess they have as hostages.

Lumet directs this movie with percision and style. The feel of the film is tense and involving. The characters are very well developed and stylized. we see Sonny not as a ruthless bank robber. But as a good guy who is so mixed up in the head, he just makes bad decisions. The reality of his life ways so heavy on him that he feels he has no other recourse but to do what he feels is necessary, which is to rob this bank. You can tell by the shady plan he had for robbing the bank that his head really wasn't in it as much as it should have been in order to pull this off. This movie basically shows how the pitfalls of life can absorb somebody's conscieceness so much that it clouds any hint of logical reasoning. The mobs which surround the bank are Sonny enthusiasts and supporters. The irony here is, he's a bank robber! However, the people of New York can relate more to Sonny, than the police or the hostages. How is that? They see in Sonny a representation of everything that seems to be wrong with the "system". Politicians, bureacrats, law enforcement officials and how they seem to control everyones lives more than the people themselves in this so called free country. This movie is timeless and will remain strong through many generations.