It’s been said before by critics and film enthusiasts but Sidney Lumet is one of the greatest underrated directors in American movie history. Very much of the same class as Billy Wilder a generation before, Lumet was no expert craftsman or auteur, but he had extremely good sensibilities and an understanding of how to make a film. His greatest classics include 12 Angry Men, Network, The Verdict, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and Murder on the Orient Express. And also this film, Dog Day Afternoon, one of his most successful and one of the greatest testaments to his talents. It was a groundbreaking movie too, for a few reasons, not least of which its depiction of the LGBTQ community. Granted it’s not a depiction that has held up entirely well, but it is noteworthy anyway for its early sympathetic image of a bisexual character and of a transgender character, if it shies away a touch from the realities of their stigmatized existence in that time.
Of course the movie isn’t really about sexuality and gender identity –in fact both these things are treated as a reveal by Frank Pierson’s Oscar-winning screenplay when they come up midway through the movie. It’s actually quite enticingly structured how little we know of the main characters when the action starts, with details as to their lives, personalities, and motivations only emerging as the film moves along and they get deeper into their crime. It’s not entirely unlike another Lumet film, 12 Angry Men, in this. And it’s a narrative effect that works better with time, as the true story behind the movie, and thus also the identities and motivations of its protagonists, would have still been relatively recent in the public consciousness. With distance it gets to be more surprising, more suspenseful.
Dog Day Afternoon is a bank robbery story that chronicles a single day wherein a pair of first time criminals, Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) and Sal Naturile (John Cazale) hold up a bank in Brooklyn and take several staff and customers hostage when the police arrive on the scene. Due to poor timing the bank only has $1,100 in cash at the moment, far less than what Sonny and Sal need, and so they stall and attempt to negotiate with police and FBI another way out of the situation. It ultimately turns out the impetus for the robbery is Sonny’s desire to attain the money for his transgender partner Leon’s (Chris Sarandon) confirmation surgery.
The film is extremely well-staged and paced, owing as much to the cast of off-Broadway New York theatre professionals (many of them long-time colleagues of Pacino and Cazale) as to Lumet’s direction. The vast majority of the film is set in the one bank and the street outside and so it very much has the feel of an efficient and concise play -which perhaps is what appealed to Pacino- or a standalone television movie -which perhaps is what appealed to Lumet. Yet the pacing has an intensity to it, even in the moments where the momentum dips. But it’s strongly blocked and choreographed, demonstrative of Lumet’s technical proficiency. He’s not making unique or interesting filmmaking choices necessarily, but he knows exactly where to focus his resources and recognizes that the script and the strength of his actors’ capabilities are the film’s most valuable assets.
And Dog Day Afternoon really is a movie you watch for the performances, for the drama that comes from a deft execution of story through dialogue and character building. It’s so compelling how right away you have a handle on Pacino’s character, how he comes into the bank shifty-eyed and tense -it’s clear on some level he doesn’t want to be there doing what he’s doing but has to, and wants to get it over with as quickly as possible and with as little harm caused. This comes across virtually before he utters a line, and the clumsy way he pulls his gun out paired with the paleness in his face when both his plain-laced second accomplice Stevie (Gary Springer) backs out of the plan immediately and he learns of the bank’s depleted cash speaks volumes to this guy’s nerve and resolve. Michael Corleone, Tony Montana he isn’t.
Sonny Wortzik is easily one of Pacino’s best performances, even coming from that decade where almost every performance he gave was a classic. Unlike so many a Pacino character this is a man who isn’t fundamentally in control but is desperately trying to act like it, while at the same time intensely resistant to escalating the situation by turning it violent. The film asks to sympathize with him and understand what at least appears to be a decent moral drive. And yet he is required to be aggressive and intimidating towards both his hostages and the authorities trying to reign him in. Even as he regrets the action he is stuck in it by his determination not to turn himself in and face prison time. There’s fear in Pacino’s eyes through the whole movie, a desperation tangible in his body language. His methodical approach grounds the movie in it’s tragedy as well as it’s stakes. And his soul comes out in the dialogue, which he plays with at times a fiery intensity and a calculating resolve. Amidst this though, perhaps my favourite scene is his dour earnest dictation of a will to Leon -seemingly already aware if he won’t admit it to himself that he’s lost. Yet he wants to make absolute certain Leon’s needs are met.
It’s remarkable both how much and how little Sonny’s sexuality matters. Regardless of how the script identifies it (the news refers to him as a homosexual and Sal is offended to be lumped in as one too) and how it plays as something of a narrative twist that this protagonist is married to a transgender woman, Sonny is still drawn in honest, authentic, and humanized ways -without any stereotyping, moralizing, or vilifying on account of his sexual orientation. Certainly neither Pacino nor Pierson approach him any differently than they would a straight character, and they take seriously his relationship with Leon. Leon herself is another matter somewhat, as Sarandon does put on something of an ostentatious affect -albeit one that is as much regional stereotype as LGBTQ (Lumet apparently directed him to evoke a Queens housewife). There’s obviously some awkwardness around the terminology and the psychology, the former far more harmless than the latter; an interview with Leon frames her transition as being motivated by various stereotype complexes that her therapist told her amounted to her being “a woman in a man’s body” -which despite her otherwise autonomous interest in pursuit of confirmation surgery seems to horrendously imply exactly what conservatives insubstantively believe in their anti-trans vendetta about doctors ‘trans-ing’ patients. Yet there’s also an honest sensitivity to how Leon is portrayed, the judgement she receives (and by association, Sonny) coming purely from within the story rather than without. It’s arguable she too is reduced to shock value by how the script showcases her, but there isn’t much there to shock -she’s not gaudy or conspicuous in any way. And because Sonny cares about her, the audience is made to -and their relationship is seen to be real and valid, even as she rebuffs and argues with him in that searing and beautifully bittersweet phone conversation.
In contrast to Pacino’s heavy and expressive performance, John Cazale, handpicked by Pacino as his partner, is rather restrained -and yet monumentally effective. Each time I’ve seen Cazale in a movie, and this is the last, I’ve felt a small pang of sadness for his loss and what he could have done -I’m certain he would have won an Oscar at some point (I maintain he deserved it over De Niro for The Godfather Part II). As Sal, he brings a real quiet menace, more violent-minded than Sonny, just as shaky yet less impulsive -a magnetic presence throughout the whole movie. Charles Durning plays the police sergeant trying to goad Sonny out, with James Broderick as the more forceful FBI agent. The tertiary cast is littered with notables, a young Carol Kane being one of the bank tellers, Lance Henriksen as the FBI agent tasked with transporting the pair and their hostages in the climax, and Dominic Chianese (“Junior” Soprano) appearing in one scene as Sonny’s father, disowning his son while his wife and ex-daughter-in-law go to plead with him.
As the drama unfolds outside the bank, Sonny and Sal concoct their plan to engineer their way out of the situation by demanding safe passage to a jet that can take them out of the country in exchange for none of the hostages being harmed. As this is considered and put in motion by both sides, it’s fascinating how the relationship between captors and captives plays out. The script is so tight and so smart as it organically relates Sonny to those in the bank, who come to empathize with him and Sal -one even comforts Sal at her release over his fear of flying. It never alludes to anything like Stockholm Syndrome but there’s a humane nuance to the connections here -these people genuinely give Sonny and Sal the benefit of the doubt, Sonny especially, the more it becomes clear he has no real intentions of harming anyone.
And he doesn’t, apart from himself and Sal in the end, their escape plan of course doesn’t go through. Much as Lumet doesn’t waste any time in the film’s opening, cutting from the true story preamble to the beginning of the action, Sal’s death and Sonny’s capture are played incredibly swiftly with the true facts stated as Sonny is taken away. It once more reorients the film in that style of TV drama, makes it feel more immediate -although allowing for one more lingering shot on Pacino, shocked at the death of his friend. It’s quite a sombre note, the end of what was supposed to be a quick and easy heist, and you along with Pacino are left to stew in what it turned into. Dog Day Afternoon is as smart and interesting as its reputation, a model of craft both in front of and behind the camera, and not so dated as it might be.
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