Review of Dog Day Afternoon (1975) by Spencer S — 27 Jan 2014

This is one of the most comprehensive, well thought out, and emotionally complicit films about bank robbery, the inspiration for later great films such as Public Enemies and Point Break. The film is the true story of a bank robbery in Brooklyn in 1972 by Sonny and Sal which led to a media cavalcade of massive proportions.

What differs from many films about bank robbing is that the robber isn't a feared individual hell-bent on evil ways, murdering everyone along the way and "throwing bodies out the front door." The robbers in question are made to feel like pathetic human beings, one a soft hearted but deeply loyal triggerman who is held accountable for the hostages' lives, yet must be coaxed and cuddled throughout by the leader, Sonny.

Sonny (Al Pacino) is the best and sole reason for the entire film. He is pointedly a dejected man with little keeping him mentally sober to everything going on around him. Though he is a violent and changed person in the passing years, he cares for the hostages he is keeping alive in the bank and they in turn start becoming his friends and willing captives, mimicking Stockholm Syndrome.

Little by little Sonny heads all negotiations and becomes the eccentric face of the operation, leading him to becoming a media darling and grandstander for the all too willing crowd of loud mouths and radicals.

The entire film shows the human side of the robbers, the intricate set of events that led to the end of their game of chance. Though much of this is simply shot within the parameters of the actual scene and does not defer from the bank or the outside perimeter, the waiting game is always intensified by the arguments between Sonny and Detective Moretti (Charles Durning) which usually give Sonny the upper hand, as he not only holds hostages, but regularly stirs up the crowd with his calls of "Attica" a police blunder several months beforehand.

Here Sonny is a folk hero, a diabolical lynch pin who knows everything that the police are planning to do, gives himself to the public eye, and then believes he and his accomplice will get away scot free.

Besides that he himself has a complicated backstory, what with his perpetually verklempt wife, his worrying yet naive mother, and newly gilded bride, Leon. Another element to the story is Sonny's motive in robbing the bank: to pay for a sex change operation for Leon.

Though this is only a small section of the film and in no way changes the warped view of him, he is still a problematic character, and though he is cocky he still fears death. Great casting led to the part of Sal going to the incredibly talented John Cazale, who plays the needy outsider who would rather start killing the hostages then be killed himself.

Carol Kane and Chris Sarandon play small roles, both unknown at the time and looking fresh faced and incredibly young. Just a wrought, beautiful, and horrifying account of a desperate man made into a leader before he was ready.