Dog Day Afternoon Review

 

Dog Day Afternoon.

Director: Sidney Lumet
Stars: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Chris Sarandon, Penelope Allen, Sully Boyar, Beulah Garrick, Carol Kane, Sandra Kazan Marcia Jean Kurtz, Amy Levitt, John Marriot, Estelle Omens, James Broderick, Charles Durning and Lance Henricksen.

Running Time: 125 Mins

Release: 21 September 1975

Set on true events.The film is set on the 22^nd of August 1972 in Brooklyn. Two optimistic amateur bank robbers Sonny (Pacino) and Sal (Cazale) go into a bank armed with guns to rob it. It should of only took half an hour. But it lasted 8 hours and turned into a complete media circus with the cops, crowds and TV camera's surrounding the bank .

Sonny is the brains of the operation and uses the hostages (the staff,manager and security guard) to bargain with the law; police detective Eugene Moretti (Durning) and a high up FBI agent Sheldon (Broderick). Inside the bank Sonny tries to get along with their captives and to stop Sal blowing his plan by killing the hostages.

I have only seem Pacino in one film before and that's another Lumet film Serpico, he was great in that but he absolutely blows the doors off it's hinges in this one. You can tell Sonny Wortzik is a man who's on the edge, he's very troubled, stressed and under a lot of pressure, who's not got much of a plan for the job, who can go off at any moment. you can tell this by his body language alone. The money from the job is to pay for his 'wife's' (Sarandon) operation. In the beginning of the movie Sonny is very nervous as the bank job gets going as him and Sal try to take control of the bank I love the way how he moved across the bank floor at such a speed that he slid and how he removed the gun from the parcel you can tell his amateur. He even has delusions that they'll get away. When the cops and media and crowds show up he starts to use them like putty in his hands by gaining sympathy from the crowds, media coverage and demands from the cops. These scenes are absolutely sublime i'll go into them later on.

As the events of the film unravel you feel sympathy for Sonny, well at least I do anyway as you get to know him. He even gets along with his captives some more than others but the scenes he shares with the bank manager Mulvaney (Boyar) and Sylvia (Allen) are particularly special. Who can forget his scenes with Charles Durning they are superb and one of my favourite highlights of the film, they have great chemistry and it's a complete joy to watch their shouting matches. To say anymore on other scenes would spoil it.

Pacino brings Sonny to life it's an incredible performance so energetic, manic, fresh,frantic, raw and angry and memorable, he also has a great voice too, no one could of done it better than him and he steals the film and has most of the great quotes in the film.

John Cazale is an absolutely fantastic actor who only made a handful of films, all of which were outstanding before his untimely death and this is one of them. He plays Sonny's partner in crime Sal a quite loose cannon who's not all that smart. You can tell he is just as nervous as Sonny but more reserved yet has his finger on trigger.. He does not talk that much in the film and expresses a lot with his body language. He's not as likeable as Sonny but you do feel some sympathy for him as does Maria (Levitt) as she gives him her rosary. He also has one of the greatest scenes in film history when Sonny asks him where do you want to go abroad when they get their jet and he responds Wyoming as Sal didn't know that Wyoming was in the states. His performance is just as memorable as Pacino's.

Charles Durning is an actor whom i've never heard of before but I have to say I was blown away by his magnificent performance in this film as Detective Moretti the man assigned to negotiate with Sonny and these scenes are explosive. Like Sonny and Sal he's a man on edge but on the other side of the law. All he wants is the ordeal to be over and done with and has a really hard time with negotiating with the police force and Sonny, it's incredibly frustrating as Sonny demands they holster their guns when he comes out as he's unarmed to negotiate with the police There's too many highlights to list in their scenes. Durning shows a lot of emotion in his scenes.

Chris Sarandon plays Sonny's wife Leon Shermer, Sonny is robbing the bank for him so that he can get a sex-change operation as Leon feels he's a woman that's trapped in a man's body. Being honest I have only seen Sarandon in Fright Night, The Princess Bride and A Nightmare Before Christmas. I believe this to be one of earliest roles. Leon and Sonny have a love/hate relationship and it really shows in the film.It's a terrific and incredibly convincing performance by Sarandon.

Even though Sonny and Leon are gay it does not take anything or give anything to the characters it's just a minor part of the characters I have little care for their sexuality, they are two brilliant characters.

Sully Boyar plays Mulvaney the bank manager who unwittingly gets entangled between Sonny & Sal and the cops. Ive never seen or heard of Boyar before but he's fantastic in this film. He's incredibly sympathetic and tries to calm the situation and somewhat get's along with Sonny. The scene with him, Sylvia and Sonny at the start of the film is brilliant as they suss he does not have a plan at all.

The most standout member of staff at the bank is Sylvia (Allen) she is the head of the girls that work there. She is very standoffish and plucky and headstrong and looks out for her fellow workers also her 15 minutes of fame scene is great.

The other women I have listed in the film play the bank tellers in the film. John Marriot plays Howard the security guard who's the first hostage to be freed that scene is absolutely hilarious in my opinion, I had no idea he was 82 !.

Also special mention to Lance Henriksen as he plays Agent Murphy the agent that drives Sonny, Sal and the hostages to Kennedy Airport. He only has a few lines but it's odd to see him so young, he's great in this and effortlessly cool like in many of his classic films including Terminator, Aliens and Near Dark.

Oddly this film has no soundtrack at all, which is a first I have never seen a film with no soundtrack before and it works really well as I think a soundtrack would ruin it. There's only two instances of music throughout the film Elton John's Amoreena which is used to open the film showing footage of a day in New York leading up to the robbery it's a great track and I could not imagine a better one it's place it's like New York is a character in itself and The Looney Tunes is on the background and the theme plays this is used to explain that the robbery has become a farce.

There's some absolutely fantastic scenes in this film as I have said many times before and I love the five minutes of fame ones especially the pizza man one which is my absolute favourite his reaction is class !. Lumet has done a absolutely outstanding job with the shots it's magnificent in how many shots he uses in the film especially in the bank with the panning shots.

It's a very thematic film and one in particular makes me compare this film to King of Comedy with the celebrity culture angle and that New York is a character in that too. The reason why it's called Dog Day Afternoon is because it was a hot lazy summers day when people just wanted to laze around and do nothing. All in all it's an absolute masterpiece of a film and has to be seen to be believed it's incredibly well acted, fantastic dialogue, darkly funny, taught, suspenseful, entertaining and incredibly well shot it's just a pity it's not on Blu-Ray.