Dog Day Afternoon

 

DIRECTED BY-:
Sidney Lumet
STARRING-:
Al Pacino
John Cazale
Chris Sarandon
YEAR OF RELEASE-:
1975
PREMISE-:
Three amateur bank robbers plan to hold up a bank. A nice simple robbery: Walk in, take the money, and run. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that could go wrong does.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS.

SUSPENSE & TENSION

Despite the film essentially taking place in 3-4 locations, Sidney Lumet is able to maintain a great amount of suspense and tension throughout, thanks to the skillful implementation of many technical aspects. Like most Sidney Lumet films, the cinematography of this movie is indisputably fantastic. The visuals never feel repetitive or dull, and everything from the vast cityscapes, to the sheer force of the police, to the sweaty, cramped insides of the bank are captured with proficiency. However, because of the way the narrative is structured, the middle portion of the film drags for a little while, until it picks up excellently towards the end, where the lack of background music adds an extra layer of tension, as the primary sound we hear is of the police cars, the loud engines of the jet, and the screams of the hostages after a character is shot. 

HUMOR

Great performances, quick editing, and witty dialogues all work together in creating a lot of funny moments, especially in the beginning of the film when the robbery starts to fall apart piece-by-piece. 

PERFORMANCES

Although the entire cast does a pretty good job, Al Pacino’s performance is without a doubt the best aspect of Dog Day Afternoon. He just has that special kind of screen presence where you can’t take your eyes off him, while simultaneously only seeing the character he’s playing and not the actor. Everything from his dialogue delivery, mannerisms, subtle face twitches, body language, and changes in expressions were top-notch, and he single-handedly elevated the film from a 6/10 to a 7/10 for me.

CHARACTERS

While the character work in the movie is undoubtedly good (as I will elaborate below), at the end of the day it is disappointingly just that — nothing great or excellent, but just good enough to make the movie a memorable and entertaining experience.

Sonny is not a very complex character, but he still has some significant nuances that I appreciated. He doesn’t fall into the binary of good or evil, and has a lot of strengths as well as flaws that make him very human. 

Firstly, he is blatantly inexperienced with bank robberies, apparent from the way he executes the robbery as well as his manic and frantic demeanor during the entire hostage situation. While his intentions behind the robbery and the love for the people in his life might be pure, he still struggles with severe anger issues (perhaps stemming from PTSD from his time in Vietnam), which manifest as abusive behavior with both of his wives and kids. Still, he isn’t a complete psychopath, and deeply cares about people, evident from the will he formulates and the way he treats the hostages.

As for Sal, we’re only ever given hints about his characteristics and reasons for helping Sonny, as he remains a pretty enigmatic character throughout. 

In contrast to Sonny, he is much more calm, collected, and focused. The film implies that this is because he’s already an ex-convict and has way more experience, and therefore wouldn’t hesitate before killing the hostages if push comes to shove. We also learn in the hilarious yet heartbreaking “Wyoming” scene, that maybe because of his criminal background, Sal has no one in his life he would like to say goodbye to when he leaves the country. Apart from that, the most we learn about him is that he treats his body like a temple and looks down on anyone who doesn’t, and that, for some reason, he really wants the world to not perceive him as gay.

Coming to Leon, Angie, Detective Moretti, and some of the hostages, they ARE given distinct personalities, but the film never develops them enough for them to feel like full-fledged characters. One easy fix to this could’ve been to just merge the characters of police detective Moretti and FBI agent Sheldon, since they basically served the same purpose in the story. This way, we would've had a single main character from the point of view of the police, that would've helped in making us connect with the story more. Granted, this change would not have been accurate to the real life events, but then again, the film already took a lot of artistic liberties in telling this story, so I don’t think one extra inaccuracy would’ve hurt it much.

THEMES

The film also briefly but succinctly touches on a lot of social issues and themes, such as - toxic love, acceptance of sexuality, police brutality, the neglect of war veterans, the exploitative and invasive nature of the media, and the bizarre ways in which the most unlikely, seemingly insignificant people can often emerge as messianic, revolutionary figures under extraordinary circumstances, only to then be mocked and belittled just as quickly as they were put on a pedestal. While the film doesn't dive particularly deep into any of these themes, it lingers on them long enough for the viewing experience to feel satisfying without feeling overwhelming.

CONCLUSION

Despite a few shortcomings, Dog Day Afternoon still proves itself to be a classic in not only the heist genre but also in the vast landscape of thought-provoking cinema. Although not Lumet's best, it is certainly one of his better films and is definitely miles ahead of the films that have subsequently tried to emulate its magic.

RATING-: 7/10