Brooklyn is Burning

Rating: 8/10 (10 December 2012)

"Dog Day Afternoon" is the more-or-less true story of an inept Brooklyn bank robbery by Sonny (Al Pacino) and Sal (John Cazale). The robbery is comically inept from the start, with a third accomplice getting cold feet and leaving, and Sonny's massive bag for the cash dwarfing the few thousand dollars the bank has in the vault, as the mid-day pickup has occurred already. After starting a fire to burn records of the traveler's checks they're stealing, neighboring business owners are tipped off and the chaos begins.
This is definitely a movie about chaos. A crowd gathers to enjoy the drama, at first cheering on Sonny as he famously chants "Attica! Attica!". The movie is about so much more than just an inept bank robbery, as clearly we are seeing a society in confused, quasi-rebellion against corrupt authority, but as in real life, the rage in this movie doesn't really go anywhere, with the crowd more interested in cheap thrills than politics. The media is on hand in droves, turning the standoff into the night's feature entertainment for the entire city, especially once they learn that Sonny was married to a woman-in-a-man's body by a defrocked priest. The crowd turns to homophobia and gay liberation protesters show up as darkness falls on the scene.
Meanwhile, Sonny is manic as he tries to keep his hostages in check, manage the emotions of his dim-witted accomplice Sal, negotiate with police for a helicopter and jet to the tropics, or maybe Algeria (or Wyoming). He also has to deal with no less than both his wives and his mother, in conversations that in a darkly funny way show that even amid a hostage standoff his basic problems with the people in his life are inescapable.
The movie is shot in a cinema verite style aside from a musical intro, with no background music. It is effective for the most part. I found that the movie drags as it goes on, unfortunately, especially over the very long phone conversation between Sonny and his new wife. The movie starts out so wildly unconventional, based on perhaps the most preposterous bank robbery ever committed, but its ending seems to be done more in the style of a typical crime film of the 1970s. Perhaps that is how events really unfolded, but I found the way it was presented to not quite live up to the film's tremendous start.
This is nevertheless definitely a film worth watching, it is as quintessentially a movie of 1970s New York as Taxi Driver or anything by Woody Allen. It is also one of Pacino's greatest performances, and some of Lumet's best work.