Please Stand By

Rating: 10/10 (18 May 2016)

Initially, we believe Sonny is an accomplished and capable criminal. He knows all the tricks of the trade that the tellers employ. There's humour in the way he dismissively scatters the decoy bills, as if he has done this a hundred times and is sick of all the charades. Pacino's character is a great mystery and intimacy at once. His bravado persona is played up for the crowd and all the media scrutiny that accompanies the stakeout. His jaded, weary dialogue reflects a criminal who has seen all that the cops throw at you. When they try to ambush him from the back entrance, he becomes utterly incredulous that they would be so disrespectful and not take his criminal aspirations seriously. Again and again he reminds everyone that he holds the hostages, and therefore the power. Then the facade begins to slowly crack, and he has trouble believing it himself.
John Wojtowicz, who the character is based upon, watched The Godfather right before holding up the Chase Manhattan branch. Did Sonny also do the same before attempting his first career crime, hoping that it would inspire a personality that screamed, "Don't mess with me"? When this part of Sonny peels away, we begin to see the man he truly is underneath. The Catholic in him does not want anyone to get hurt, but to make it a quick and painless job. The bank's manager, Mulvaney, agrees. Boyar plays a great natural role within the bustle of New York City. There are many a people like Mulvaney, who are thinking of their families, and who can instantly see through Sonny's charade and believe that he does not mean to harm anyone. This allows them to chastise and laugh at his lack of preparation only moments after he storms in guns aloft. The NYC influence also allows the crowd to see Sonny as one of their own, revolting against the system, and rally around his cries and stunts. It allows for the delivery boy's moment of stardom, which would mar the tension of any conventional crime thriller set elsewhere, to be a brilliant addition to Lumet's little satirical jabs.
The magic of Dog Day Afternoon is in how cleverly and subtly it conceals its act of shifting moralities. At first we fear for the innocent hostages' lives. We see a crazed criminal who is not afraid to use his gun, and has little patience for tricks or holdups. We are like Mulvaney, edging slowly and carefully, hoping to resolve this without bloodshed. By the end of the film the oddball group has miraculously become a dysfunctional family. When Maria is let go as part of the bargain, she cries out in relief, half sobbing, half laughing. And then she turns and says something that would be, again, completely out of place in another film: "Sal, 'cause this is your first plane trip, don't be scared, okay?" And she hands over her rosary beads too. When did this relationship develop? When did they have this heart-to-heart talk? When did the dynamic cease to be kidnapper-hostage? Was it when Sylvia, instead of walking straight to freedom, gave a wave to the cameras and returned to accompany her girls? Or when Sonny ensures that the asthmatic guard and diabetic Mulvaney get the treatment they need? At the start of the film we are hoping no innocent blood will be shed. By the end of it, these innocents are part of the crusade themselves, and we have been positioned like the community, clenching our hands together and hoping that the gang make it on their plane and fly away to safety.
The crowd is fickle, of course. They waver when they discover Sonny's bisexuality - even though he is only doing it to pay for his wife's gender re-assignment. Lumet has so carefully tread the line here. Leon is not made an easy target for the masses, or a lazy stereotype. His nails may be done and his voice a little high-pitched as his nerves flare up, but the most important thing is that he is in pain. There is a wonderful, loving, stormy and hurting relationship here between the lines. No doubt something has happened, and it has torn them apart, but the love burns strongly afterwards, so much so that Sonny has decided to rob a bank when he has been a good Catholic all his life. The phone-call is heart-wrenching. Another smaller scene is the same. Leon has been dragged in from a psychiatric hospital to be harshly interrogated by a horde of policemen. When he admits he feels like a woman in a man's body, a cop in the background who has been holding in his laugh cannot smother it any longer and lets it out. Leon's reaction is not even anger, or outrage. We understand this is a usual reaction he endures everyday. It is simply sad resignation.
Another tragic character is Sal, who is pushed to one side by the stage-stealing Sonny. Cazale is silent, forlorn, timid. Like Sonny he does not feel comfortable about robbing a bank, only he is not equipped with the shouting skills to pretend otherwise. He simply closes in on himself and curls away into a corner, internalising. He exchanges small talk with the tellers, who are ironically much more relaxed and cheerful than him. He refuses a smoke: his body is a temple. Oddly enough, his body throughout the film is sweating furiously, visualising all the stress for him. Are these bad people, or simply people who have hit a dead end and find themselves with no other choice? We might not be driven to the same ends, but we agree with their frustrations. They are so human and painfully drawn that we feel for them. Some rob a bank. Other kick a chair, or throw a plate, or a punch. We can channel it elsewhere in our lives, and find we are not so different.