Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
docudrama
directed by : Sidney Lumet
featuring : Al Pacino - John
Cazale - Charles Durning - Sully Boyar - Chris Sarandon
running time : 2 hours 10 minutes
Based on a true 1972 story, Sidney Lumet's 1975
drama chronicles a unique bank robbery on a hot summer afternoon in New
York City. Shortly before closing time, scheming loser Sonny (Al Pacino)
and his slow-witted buddy Sal (John Cazale) burst into a Brooklyn bank
for what should be a run-of-the-mill robbery, but everything goes wrong,
beginning with the fact that there is almost no money in the bank. The
situation swiftly escalates, as Sonny and Sal take hostages, enough cops
to police the tristate area surround the bank, a large Sonny sympathetic
crowd gathers to watch, the media arrive to complete the circus, and Police
Captain Moretti (Charles Durning) tries to negotiate with Sonny while keeping
the volatile spectacle under control. When Sonny's lover Leon (Chris Sarandon)
tries to talk Sonny out of the bank, we learn the robbery's motive: to
finance Leon's sex-change operation. Sonny demands a plane to escape, but
the end is near once menacingly cool FBI Agent Sheldon (James Broderick)
arrives to take over the negotiations.
Shooting on location in New York,
Lumet and Oscar-winning writer Frank Pierson maintain an objective view
of a potentially exploitative story, grasping both the human comedy of
an absurd situation and the seriousness of what's at stake. Sonny and Sal
are not so much stereotypical figures of ridicule as they are lost souls
at the mercy of forces beyond their control and comprehension. Yet they
are not romanticized; neither cops nor robbers come off well. Dog Day Afternoon
found a large 1975 audience for its oddball yet timely story, with all
of the lead actors, especially Pacino, winning kudos for their bravura
performances. Tapping into contemporary tensions over law, media, and sexuality,
with Pacino's confused anti-hero at the center of the melee, Dog Day Afternoon
is a quintessential 1970s story, devoid of unequivocal good guys and replete
with public and private turmoil.