Confused and alienated youths going some way to produce a dog's dinner of a robbery, in what is a brilliantly executed drama piece.

Rating: 8/10 (17 July 2010)

Dog Day Afternoon begins with a montage presented to us in a relatively upbeat fashion, a going over and presenting of tidbits of New York-set summer iconography as people enjoy tennis matches; time on a beach and young lovers' company with one another. The music is uplifting and upbeat, the weather warm and welcoming as various people of whom have dressed down to coincide with the climate totter about the streets and parks. The soundtrack is meaningfully toned down when we come to focus on the American flag, itself being lowered from a pole, before cutting to a car housing some shifty looking individuals outside a bank: the iconographic, or 'romantisised', view of the city comes to a bit of crashing halt as we zone in on a new band of youths of whom do not conform to the various groups of kids and youths most certainly on display in the 'outsider' montage. The flag's physical lowering is systematic with the film's own lowering into a part of New York the tourists don't see, and their clicking off of the radio thus killing the song we were actually hearing, is the ultimate act that confirms both their and this New York existence's presence.
Dog Day Afternoon has this attitude towards New York and its inhabitants, keeping a distanced perspective of more typical New York City imagery and instead focusing on those inhabiting the undergrowth within; those with issues, problems, flaws and feelings as the actions and consequents of those that undertake the desperate deeds are observed. "The robbery should have taken 10 minutes. 4 hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. 8 hours later, it was the hottest thing on live T.V. 12 hours later, it was all history. And it's all true" reads the film's tag-line; its 'hook', if you will. Not knowing a thing about the true-to-life events the 1975 released Best Picture nominee is based on may have added an extra layer of dramatic effect, but I've a feeling the film would work just as effectively with the knowledge of said events in mind.
The film sees Al Pacino's Sonny Wortzik and John Cazale's Sal hole up in a bank much in the same way a certain John Wojtowicz did in reality with his accomplice Salvatore Naturile, on whose exploits the film is based. Of all the physical things wrong with what they do in conjunction with the robbery, the oral mentioning of their names out loud is probably the worst of the early stages; Sonny's general incompetence masked by Sal's real inability, we feel, to deal with what he's got himself involved in, and consequently coming across as more attributed to the scenario than he actually is. Sonny takes charge of the situation when the preplanned three of them is reduced to two after the bailing of an additional robber, Sonny does the talking and thinking as Sal inherits the characteristics of the sub-machine gun he wields: a short, small and sinister looking individual whom does very little and feels just as concealed from the action. You get the additional sense he could do some serious, rapid and biting damage if provoked. As one thing leads to another, a large crowd gathers outside and soon police negotiators representing their true-to-life incarnations, with altered names, are doing their utmost to defuse the situation.
If Lumet is presenting the inhabitants of New York in his opening montage as the average, every-day New York City dwelling every-men as youngsters enjoys sports and one another's company; then the zoning in on the car of bank robbing youths might be seen as a marginalisation of said inhabitants as the disconnection they have from everyone else is made aware: their chosen activity is anything but of the populist or indeed legal variety. But rather than marginalise, or demonise, these people as nothing more than petty thieves or, as it transpires through one means or another, emotionally confused freaks involved in bizarre extramarital affairs; the film chooses to explore their plight and, crucially, if we are to compare them to the match-made youths in the opening montage, their straining relationships with wives and partners.
While the true aims of why it is they are after such a large stash of money are more humbling than those of what most other thieves might have done it for, Lumet's film does not excuse the perpetrators of this crime, nor does it glamorise or idolise the characters. Instead broadening the study into a sort of collective struggle blended in with some other youngsters of the day: youths confused and alienated with both the system and authoritarian figures in general, in a nation whose government is supposedly corrupt-to-the-core given the shadow of Watergate still looming large, and whom were expected to go off and die in Vietnam on demand for phony ideologies of said government. The attention seeking, disillusioned youngsters that gather around the bank when the media circus kicks off sees many-a youngster heckle the police officers guarding the area and often crave meek fame for having seen around an event such as this, offering somewhat gleeful reactions to the result of being on display in front of a television camera and an (in)consequental few seconds of fame when they are not feeling as if they've achieved something by simply delivering a pizza to the crime scene. The film is rich in drama, the stand offs between Sonny and the police officers pushed right to the brink of which of the two sides might come out on top, and Lumet inches out as much heightened tension as possible in a film that is thoroughly worthwhile in its explorations and detailing.