Moving Right Along, Folks

Rating: 8/10 (2 October 2004)

Al Pacino never had a role as tailor-made to his gift for over-the-top, on-the-edge histrionics than he did in "Dog Day Afternoon." His Sonny is unique for the way he mixes comedy and pathos, screaming profanity one moment, quietly sympathetic and almost soulfully gentle the next. "I speak what I feel," he tells a teller who asks him to watch his language, but he's obviously sensitive to what people think of him, even when he's pointing a gun at them.
"Dog Day Afternoon" is really Pacino's baby. The film exists to serve his art. The fact he's great in it is almost incidental. Of course he's great in it, he's a great actor in a movie that puts all the focus on him. But how good is it otherwise?
Pretty to very, depending on which part of the movie you are watching. The film is better at the outset and in the middle than in the end, where it gets sloppy in its emotions and reaches beyond the bank for its storyline, dulling the focus. The central premise, a holed-up duo of ne'er-do-wells taking on the city, works as underdog formula for a while, especially when Sonny faces down the police by screaming "Attica" and making them put their guns down. The bank employees are fleshed out nicely with the help of Sully Boyar as the bank's manager, Penny Allen as the head teller, Marcia Jean Kurtz as a gum-snapping teller, and Carol Kane as the "squirrel" who gets a call from her husband asking what he should do for dinner while she's a hostage.
Pacino's "Godfather" mate John Cazale, in a velvet suit of fire engine red in case you were wondering what decade this was made in, is there as buddy Sal to provide steely backup as Sonny holds up the First Brooklyn Savings Bank. When John Cazale is the muscle man, your plot is definitely in trouble, and Sal and Sonny quickly find themselves surrounded by about four thousand members of New York's finest.
The dialogue has a very improvisational feel to it, which along with the strong characterization and frequent humor gives "Dog Day Afternoon" much of its watchability. You really feel like you are seeing this botched robbery happen as it goes down, in real time.
There's a nice use of suspense, too, the first time you watch it. Sonny's so out there that you never know what, if anything, will set him off in a homicidal rage. And you know Sal really wants to start dumping those bodies out the door. So even though you can count the number of gunshots in this movie with one hand (and have enough left over to snap your fingers with), you are nervous all the way through.
It does feel like the New York Police Department are a little too much out in force; was August 22, 1972 a good day to commit a crime in one of the other four boroughs? The police and the FBI are seen as unreasonable heavies, but Vietnam veterans and homosexuals probably come off worse, not to mention former Goldwater campaign activists. As far as the gay thing goes, it comes across as a bit silly when we see a group of over-the-top drag queens show up at the police barricade to cheer on sister Sonny, but the phone conversation between Pacino and Chris Sarandon as his lover Leon is among the movie's most affecting scenes. Sarandon is really good at playing a total human mess who actually is a voice of relative reason in Sonny's world.
Can't get over how young Pacino looks. He reminds me of Matthew Broderick in "WarGames." Funny that one of the FBI agents here is played by Matthew's father. Matthew's father is in another classic '70s New York crime movie, "The Taking Of Pelham One-Two-Three" which has a similar feeling to "Dog Day" but a much heavier vibe. No question the 1970s were a great decade for crime dramas, and "Dog Day" is one of the best.