The magic of words

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2008)

Based on something that really happened and was put down in words in an article, Frank Pierson wrote a wonderful screenplay that required putting down the first words in words again. It's a wonderful thing, words. You would never imagine the important part they play in a bank robbery: what to say to the hostages, how to treat them, what to discuss between partners, what to discuss between partners, what to tell the police or the FBI when they want to negotiate.
Fortunately, Sonny (Al Pacino) is very good with words. He's so good that he manages to achieve a good relationship with the typical public that gathers in the streets every time there is a robbery. Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" is the tale of Sonny and Sal (John Cazale), two guys who enter a bank and plan to rob it quickly but end up staying the whole afternoon, and night.
The movie is a harsh declaration against the role of the media in robberies, with cameras and reporters all over the place, not knowing exactly what they're doing but knowing they have to do something; against the role of the police, who say one thing and do another and keep their guns up while Sonny is constantly coming out of the bank with a white flag.
Of course it all revolves around Pacinos's frenetic performance, in his first major role after "The Godfather Part II". At one point he comes out of the bank and goes ballistic, demanding detective Moretti (Charles Durning) to tell the police officers to put their guns down, and screaming to the public about an event that happened in Attica. He didn't expect it, but he wins the public and becomes your 'freak show' of the day (as he would say); a kind of 'hero of the moment' everyone wants to talk to, which brings problems for the police to work properly.
Did Sonny want this? We never know, but he uses it in his favor. We actually never know quite exactly what Sonny wants, and Sidney Lumet is kind enough to let us figure it out. The director focuses on the tension, establishing a clear difference of what's going on inside and outside the bank and then translates all this to Sonny's changes of mood. "I'm dying here", he says to several people in different moments of the film; and we don't know if he's serious or if he's saying it to appear as a victim to the police.
Because Sonny (and Sal, if you pay close attention) is not the guy who would enter a bank and rob it; that's something we can deduce because he knows things and he's, in general terms, kind and worrying. What Lumet does is putting us through a horrible experience as viewers, where we can never exactly decipher what the main character will do next and why he acts the way he acts and why people say something about him we can never get to see. It's frustrating that there's a human side of the movie and that we want to know all about it but we never get chance, unless we want to elaborate an own theory.
I'm making a wild guess here, but how much could have Pierson known about this man in order to put it in his script? Probably nothing. And then we go back to the magic of words; because everything we can find out about Sonny, we do through his words. And his words are managing three expectations at the time: what the hostages expect, what the police expect and what his partner Sal expects.
It's marvelous to see how he manages it and how Lumet never loses the tension, and how among all of this unpredictable things, the film never stops creating unexpected moments.