Dog Day Afternoon

John Wojtowicz (actual bank robber on whom the film was based)

DOG DAY AFTERNOON                                         A                    

USA  (124 mi)  1975  d:  Sidney Lumet

I’m a Catholic and I don’t want to hurt anybody.                             

I’m flying to the tropics.  Fuck the snow.                             

—Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino)

Opening with a gorgeous montage of New York City set to the music of Elton John’s “Amoreena,” seen here on YouTube (3:38):  Dog Day Afternoon - Amoreena (Elton John), which may as well define the style of director Sidney Lumet, born and raised in New York City, using the city itself as the backdrop for so many of his films, where especially in this film the surging pulse of the people in the city is felt throughout.  Also, as is typical in Lumet films, the director wastes no time getting into the heat of the action, which begins almost immediately, as the audience is pulled into the intrigue of a 3-man bank heist at closing time of a small neighborhood bank where one of the robbers (Gary Springer) immediately has second thoughts and pulls out, leaving behind two of the more memorable characters in movies, John Cazale as Sal, the rifle-toting, dimwitted, socially challenged side partner to the heist mastermind, Sonny, played by the volatile but constantly besieged Al Pacino in arguably the greatest performance in his entire career.  Like no one else in memory, his believability in pulling off so many harrowing ups and downs throughout these few short hours is nothing less than masterful, as afterwards, his character remains unforgettable, more etched in our memories than many of our own relatives due to the frazzled and emotionally exposed nature of his performance.  Despite being a fidgety and completely amateurish bank robber, Sonny is seen in purely sympathetic terms, pulling the audience and the people in the film to his side instead of the authority of the police, who are shown nothing but disrespect throughout once it results in a standoff with hundreds of armed police lined along the streets outside while Sonny and Sal hold about ten bank employees inside the bank as hostages. 

Using an economy of means, the afternoon drags on much like a chess match where each side is hopeful to gain the upper hand, where the mood outside the bank is a wall of cops, sharpshooters and news reporters, with the public cordoned off just behind with highly demonstrative and swelling crowds, not to mention the presence of the ever-hovering helicopter, connected by a lone telephone that connects the beleaguered Sonny to New York Detective Sergeant Moretti, Charles Durning, who’s positioned across the street in a barbershop with a direct view of the bank.  Durning has an utterly thankless role, as he’s continually portrayed by Sonny as the wretched arm of the police.  Coming on the heels of major news headlines from the murderous Attica police raid to the Kent State massacre, the public in the Vietnam era was sick of hearing about the continuous misuse of authority.  Sonny’s sense for the theatrics reaches its peak while bravely standing on the sidewalk in the midst of police negotiations where he starts rallying the public with cries of “Attica! Attica!”  This sends the crowd into a frenzy of support while the police can only sheepishly look chagrined at getting embarrassingly upstaged by a two-bit criminal in public right on the streets they are assigned to preserve and protect.  What’s truly remarkable here is the documentary style of social realism on display, which Pacino plays to the hilt through the ever changing moods that consist of high drama but also devastatingly quiet moments.  Sal’s equally depressing mood, offering his partner little or no help at all, provides a feeling of hopelessness that pervades inside the bank, where Sonny has to continually offset that mood with his own optimism and initiative.

But this film is all Pacino, stripped of any sense of surface artificiality as we slowly learn more details about his personal life, which couldn’t be more compelling, especially since this entire event is based on a true story.  When Sonny asks Moretti to bring his wife to the scene, the entire complexity of the mood shifts, largely due to the simply outstanding performance by a stunning Chris Sarandon as Leon, who is rushed from his bedside at Bellevue Hospital by the police, but because he’s so over medicated, he refuses to speak to Sonny, as the television reports begin announcing their mystifying marital relationship.  Sarandon is so effective in the role that even the police become sympathetic, realizing that the only reason Sonny is robbing a bank is to get the money needed for Leon to have a sex change operation.  The entire bank heist dove-tailing out of control parallels a melodramatic love story, each turning into an unmitigated disaster.  The heartbreaking moments between Sonny and Leon who eventually talk on the phone, or between Sonny and some of the employees inside the bank who help him dictate his personal will, are quietly revelatory, providing a glimpse of a person under siege by a mounting distress that few could possibly comprehend.  This is one of the few films that matches the tone of the era, where the public has survived the assassinations of the 60’s, the mounting evidence of rampant police brutality, the government overreach in Watergate along with more secret bombing missions in Vietnam, a President who resigns before a certain federal indictment, where the stress and anxiety about losing faith in your own government is at an all time high.  All of this disheartened mistrust is wrapped into the character of Sonny, who courageously carries it all upon his shoulders, a man whose intentions couldn’t be more well-meaning but veers completely out of control in acts of exasperating desperation.  Lumet is to be commended for bringing such a morally complex saga into our lives with such riveting intensity, where it’s impossible not to relate to someone who’s dreams are dashed before your eyes yet insists he can still make it better, as tragic a figure as has been seen in contemporary cinema.