Dog? Where?

Rating: 7/10 (23 October 2007)

I saw a bit of Dog Day Afternoon when I was about nine years old and left it this long before actually focusing on watching the whole film. Despite claiming to be the film expert that I am, I had little knowledge of what the film is actually about.
Sonny and Sal (that's Pacino and John Cazale) and some other guy enter a bank in Brooklyn with the intention of robbing it. But they simply couldn't be less prepared. One second into the robbery the third robber chickens out and runs away, leaving Sonny and Sal to do it on their own. The staff are jaded and cynical but politely put up with their bumbling and are only too happy to see the back of them. But the police surround the building at the last minute and a hostage situation suddenly arouses.
With nowhere to go Sonny can only make the usual demands but the media circus outside makes him a nationwide star and the crowds outside cheer for him whenever he makes an appearance at the doors. I guess that in the 70's (a decade I never witnessed) public morale was so low that a failed bank robber could actually be a kind of hero for even attempting to stick it to the man.
Based on a true story, the dialogue is mostly improvised, giving it a raw, realistic feel. Despite this, the script still won an Academy Award. A young Al Pacino seems to disappear and you end up seeing him only as Sonny. Why he never won the Oscar for Best Actor that year is beyond me. But I guess they thought that Jack Nicholson as McMurphy was more iconic/important/worthy or whatever. In fact, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest took almost all the Oscar's DDA was nominated for. Having never seen that film, I can't really judge if it deserved them. It was also competing with Jaws for Best Picture that year. Man, 1975 sure was a good year for movies. Something that simply cannot be said for any year in the past decade.
One my favorite actors (Lance Henriksen, the man with the coolest voice in the world) has a small role as one of the FBI Agents. I never spotted him for a while (he's still quite young in this) and he has very little dialogue, but it still a pivotal role.
It's hard to define the genre that DDA fits into. On the one hand it's a hard-hitting real-life drama but on the other it's a satirical black comedy that's not without several moments of laugh-out-loud humor. Not a film for action junkies, I assume this is more for film buffs of students more than anyone else, but it's certainly an important film and it marks one of the many turning points in Pacino's never-ending career.