Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON is a lot of things. It’s a comedic look at criminals so unsuccessful they could compete with the characters played by Steve Buscemi and William H. Macy in FARGO (only this is a true story). It’s a study of the bond that forms between a kidnapper and his hostages. It’s another demonstration of Andy Warhol’s idea that everybody gets fifteen minutes of fame. But, most importantly, it’s a study or morality; of what is right and wrong, of what is good and bad.

In the movie, Al Pacino plays Sonny, a loser who cooks up a half-baked plan to rob a bank so his lover (Chris Sarandon - you may recognize him from the horror classics CHILD’S PLAY and FRIGHT NIGHT) can get a sex change operation. When one of his partners runs out in the middle of the robbery, Sonny is left alone with his silent partner, Sal, and a group of female bank workers. Sonny makes his fatal mistake when he lights the register on fire, drawing hundreds of detectives, policemen, snipers, reporters, anti-establishment onlookers, and even the pizza guy.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON, while also being the various things described above, is most importantly, like I said, a study of morality, so I’ll stick to writing about that. While the movie was made in 1975, the real event took place in '72, which isn’t that far away from '69, which marked the end of an extraordinary rebellion in values and ideas, as demonstrated in the greatest movies from the sixties, like THE GRADUATE. So, it’s not surprising that this "stick it to the man" attitude lingered on into the early seventies, and we see that Sonny quickly wins the crowd over when he yells, "Attica! Attica! Attica!"* at nearby policemen. In fact, the police are the dominating symbol in the story - we see New York’s finest as murdering, backstabbing, trigger-happy gay bashers. And, in the end, when they shoot Sal, we are left wondering - whatever happened to reading him his rights? I understand that these people are here to protect, but wiping out everything that scares us is not the right way to go about doing this (ahem, the war in Iraq), and it’s obvious that’s the only reason, because the rational, well-spoken of the two, Sonny, got off easy with twenty years in prison (which means he’s been a free man since 1992).

This fear that controlled the actions of the New York Police Department on that dog day afternoon in 1972 is a microcosm for the fear that runs all of our lives. Why do you think there’s so many goddamn gun deaths in the United States every year (see BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE for more on that)? Or, why do you think we’re so quick to side with the war in Iraq when Bush mutters the words, "9/11"? Or, why do you think it is that a black man was shot in the penis for asking a police officer, "Excuse me sir, what do you want?" When released from prison, he, along with several other wounded black men, were released naked. I know you may think I’m straying from the subject, but I’m not. This all exists because of FEAR; the fear that runs our lives and makes completely rational people cross the street late at night when a black man is coming their way. I cannot believe we have the gajones to call ourselves, "The land of the free" when a more accurate description would be, "The land of the free... for handsome, well-spoken, white, heterosexual, Christian males." Because, really, Sal was not shot because he was dangerous (he was, but they didn’t know that). He was shot because he was creepy-looking and different, and in this land where everyone is created equal, different people are created less-equal than us "normal" people (for more on us "normal" people, see AMERICAN BEAUTY).

Like most social commentaries, the movie is what Robert McKee calls a "slice of life". While it shows us that something is definitely wrong in this country, is doesn’t come to a conclusion on how we could go about solving the problem. Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think we can. If anybody has any solutions, please, please leave your recommendations in the “comments” section. I know it sounds cheesy, but I wish we could all live in harmony. I really do, because this whole prejudice thing is really starting to get to me. I see it everywhere: people who don’t know they’re making racist comments, people who don’t realize they’re gay-bashing, people who judge others because they look different or have different customs than their own. Jesus, what makes you think you’re so great?

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The acting in DOG DAY AFTERNOON is fabulous. Al Pacino was still in the glory days of his cocaine use, so he doesn’t have those awful bags under his eyes yet. He’s great as Sonny, always jumpy, foul-mouthed, and sweating profusely. He also puts on an accent. John Cazale, who played Fredo in THE GODFATHER, is brilliant as Sal; he is so good that I would think he really is slow and quiet in real life. Chris Sarandon seems kind of out of place without the cheesy eighties horror music backing him, and it’s kind of hard to see him playing a rather flamboyant homosexual after you’ve seen him play the least homosexual role a man can play - a vampire, but he manages to pull it off. Both Pacino and Sarandon received Oscar nominations, but neither won.

Sidney Lumet’s direction is the typical gritty style of the seventies, but the humor he adds to the movie is not at all typical of its time. Actually, I think DOG DAY AFTERNOON has more valuable social commentary than his more popular film, NETWORK, but, as the year progress, both movies become truer and truer instead of becoming outdated - that a sign that the movie rings with universal truth.

Overall, DOG DAY AFTERNOON is movie worth watching several times and examining closely. Though I have only seen it once, I hope to re-watch it in the future, and, with each viewing, gain a better understanding of its themes.


* He’s referring to an event where police officers killed, I believe, forty-one hostages along with their kidnappers.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS