Good but flawed

Rating: 8/10 (17 February 2003)

Quite an intense experience. Lumet's direction is quite good, and this is easily one of Al Pacino's best performances. Seeing it makes me mourn for what he used to be. He really needs to fire his agent right now so he can land himself better material than The Recruit and S1m0ne. While Dog Day Afternoon is very entertaining and well made, it does have some major problems. I think its depiction of gay characters, the ones besides Pacino's, that is, is dated if not offensive. It's almost like you can hear Lumet standing behind the camera telling Chris Surandon to "queer it to the max!" and "get that wrist limper!" You know he actually got an Oscar nomination for that?! The hostages are all over the map, too. Sometimes they're as scared as hell and sometimes they're having a ball. It's never consistent, not even within individual characters. There are a lot of interesting social issues raised, but the politics are a bit murky. Still, Pacino holds the film together so well that these things, even though they are pretty big flaws, seem small. I can't see how the Academy could choose Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest over Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon. The two films are about equal in value, but Pacino comes off as a full character.