Review: Dog Day Afternoon

Sonny (Al Pacino) and his volatile but none-too-bright colleague Sal (John Cazale) are attempting to rob a Brooklyn bank in broad daylight. Their other accomplice gets cold feet right beforehand and flees. There’s not as much money at the bank as Sonny expected. A hostage situation ensues, as both the law and the media turn up. So does a crowd of people, who initially view the robbers as Robin Hood-types. Then they find out the real reason why Sonny’s robbing the bank. What should’ve taken 10 minutes, goes on for hours and hours. Charles Durning plays the cop trying to get the hostages released safely and the situation resolved calmly. Sully Boyar and Carol Kane play bank employees, whilst a young Lance Henriksen plays a Fed, and Chris Sarandon plays Leon, someone very special to Sonny.

 

Sidney Lumet made a turkey or two in his time (“Equus”, “A Stranger Among Us”, “Power”), but when he was on-target he’s was one of cinema’s finest with good-to-great films like “12 Angry Men”, “The Deadly Affair”, “Network”, “Serpico”, and this 1975 truth-is-stranger-than-fiction bank robbery flick. It must’ve seemed like an irresistible story to Lumet, Pacino, and writer Frank Pierson (the brilliant “Cool Hand Luke”, as well as Lumet’s “The Anderson Tapes”) to turn this crazy true story into a film. It’s to their credit, and everyone else involved, that they’ve taken such a crazy true story and not only turned it into a terrific film, but they’ve made the crazy true story convincing. It’s all well and good for something to be true, but being true doesn’t automatically make something believable on screen. The filmmakers have to convince you it’s true.

 

Lumet is the perfect guy for this very New York film, one that also touches on social issues, the media, cops and robbers etc., all very Lumet stuff. The social commentary of the crowd/media seemingly being on Sonny’s side until they find out he’s a bisexual with a transsexual boyfriend, is absolutely hilarious and biting from the director who one year later gave us the startlingly cynical, bleak, and often funny “Network”. He goes from Robin Hood to persona non grata right away. This isn’t quite your average ordinary bank robbery flick, even though later films in the subgenre have clearly been influenced by it. You know you’re in for a different heist flick when one of the would-be robbers bails right before it begins, five minutes into the film. Yeah, this plan is gonna go terribly, terribly wrong right from the very beginning. These armed robbers are in no way geniuses. The second problem encountered by these armed dopes is that there’s nowhere near as much money at the bank as they’d suspected. Given that Pacino’s character is a former bank employee himself, you’d think he’d be a little more clued into their practices and schedules.

 

I’m very hit and miss on Al Pacino as an actor, I usually can’t stand Shouty Al. Here he’s electrifying from moment one, and mostly saves the shouting for the one or two moments where it’s helpful to the story and character. I imagine he probably jumped at the chance to play this guy, a bisexual would-be robber who is holding up a bank to pay for his pre-op transsexual lover’s sex-change operation. It’s a perfectly modulated performance from Pacino. He never really goes into ‘Shouty Al’ mode beyond the infamous ‘Attica!’ bit, but he starts off high energy and by the climax, Pacino’s Sonny is exhausted and potentially defeated. Although he is clearly too young to be playing a character who in real-life was just 18 at the time of the robbery, the late and great John Cazale is unforgettable as the nervy, not-so bright Sal. Pacino’s Sonny is dangerous because he’s a man on a mission, but Sal is dangerous because he’s an idiot with a gun and an itchy trigger finger. Pacino and Cazale’s relationship seems utterly effortless on screen, it’s amazing that Lumet allowed the actors to improvise quite a bit, especially the infamous ‘Wyoming’ dialogue exchange that is equal parts funny and pitiful, really. The other two performances that greatly stand out here are by the always rock-solid Charles Durning and an Oscar-nominated Chris Sarandon, in his best-ever performance as Sonny’s ‘other’ wife. Sonny’s first wife is a pretty amusing ball-buster herself but things get really loopy when Sarandon’s Leon turns up, fresh out of a mental hospital. Sarandon has never struck me as much of an actor really, but he’s truly outstanding in this, it’s a fairly showy performance and certainly a melodramatic character but Sarandon plays it just shy of hammy and over-the-top. He’s never jarring. Durning could play cops in his sleep, but I’ve never seen him give a bad performance or even a lazy one. Also worth a mention are the actors playing bank employees, including Sully Boyar and a young Carol Kane. What I love about them is that for the most part they’re not so much scared of these robbers so much as just plain ticked off by them, it’s hilarious in a film that although not a comedy, is often quite amusing.

 

Although you can tell this thing was made in the 70s, I really don’t think the film has really dated outside of small details. Although rather crazy, the basic situation is evergreen, right down to the media getting in the middle of the tense situation. The only thing I could really call a flaw here is only something I picked up on after maybe my third or fourth viewing: You’d figure the cops could probably take their chances with taking Sonny out of commission when he’s outside the bank. However, I’m not sure if ‘taking chances’ is wise, especially when that involves the volatile Sal still being inside and armed. Speaking of Sal, I suppose you could also say that the second half could’ve used more Sal, as he seems to disappear for a stretch in the back half. That’s hardly a flaw though, when what we do get is still riveting. Finally, it’d be criminal if I didn’t mention the kick-arse opening song ‘Amoreena’, which isn’t heard often enough these days if you ask me. How did that number fall through the cracks when the insipid ‘Island Girl’ and ‘Honky Cat’ still get plenty of radio time?

 

A winner among several from the great, if uneven Sidney Lumet. One of Al Pacino’s best performances, a superlative supporting cast, convincing locales, and a great script that serves as a fine siege flick and a compelling truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tale.

 

Rating: A-