The Boys In The Bank

Rating: 7/10 (21 June 2009)

"The medium is the message", said media critic Marshall McLuhan in 1964. The presence of cameras, news equipment, and news reporters changes an event which may, as a result, take on the characteristics of a circus. Participants in the event get their "fifteen minutes of fame". Viewers get to gawk at reality and be entertained, no matter how tragic the event.
An in-progress robbery turned media circus is the main theme of this true-life story about a Brooklyn man who, with an accomplice, tries to rob a bank. The man's name is Sonny. He's a guy with a heart, an interesting twist to our stereotyped image of bank robbers. Sonny's reason for the holdup would make for an ironic plot point in the film "The Boys In The Band" (1970).
But from the get-go, Sonny's plans unravel quickly. A third accomplice chickens out at the last minute, embarrassing Sonny in the presence of the bank hostages. The amount of money in the vault is far less than expected. Some of the women hostages need to use the restroom, a development that our kindhearted criminal can't ignore. And an inquisitive storekeeper across the street gets suspicious. Soon, cops surround the bank. And what Sonny had envisioned as a simple easy-in, easy-out holdup evolves into an hour-after-hour ordeal, involving negotiations with the police.
"Dog Day Afternoon" is alternately funny and sad. The script is rather talky. Some of the dialogue is improvised, which adds realism. Al Pacino, as Sonny, gives a fine performance. But he's rather nasal, and a little of his shrill ranting with the hostages and cops goes a long way.
The film has no score. It opens with an Elton John song, presumably coming from Sonny's car radio. Color cinematography is fine. Most of the lighting is natural.
I do think the film is about twenty minutes too long. After a while, those hours inside the bank become as tedious for viewers as for the hostages. This is a film that can leave you exhausted.
The circumstances of this story are so outrageous that they would have been deemed too silly had they originated in the mind of a Hollywood scriptwriter. Viewers would not have taken the film seriously. But the events did actually happen, and for a reason that only someone as complex, driven, compulsive, and altruistic as Sonny could have dreamed up.