the fresh films reviews

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Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Directed by:
Sidney Lumet
COUNTRY
USA
GENRE
Drama/Comedy
NORWEGIAN TITLE
Het ettermiddag
RUNNING TIME
130 minutter
Produced by:
Martin Bregman
Martin Elfand
Written by:
Frank Pierson


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Sonny Al Pacino
Sal John Cazale
Moretti Charles Durning
Leon Chris Sarandon ½
Murphy Lance Henriksen

 

Review

This comedy is most of all a contemporary social satire of useful effect. It is a brilliant document of 1970s New York and of the uprising of media as a powerful force, and it captures a few hilarious illustrations in that respect. But that is also about everything this film has to offer. Al Pacino's performance is a potential powerhouse, but his character is - behind all its absurdness – ultimately tedious and unexplored. Lumet gets his point through (thoroughly) when trying to be satirical, but he's far off when trying to create engaging dramatic relations between too many characters that are all in the same state of mind. The Freudian approach gets a bit clichéd, and the promising introduction of the Leon character is wasted by the long-winded and dramatically static middle part of the film. Not until a very fine finish can Dog Day Afternoon boast any kind of suspense, but by then it has wasted its fine premise on too many infertile dialogues and sequences.

Sitater

Sonny: "So what country do you wanna go to?"
Sal: "Wyoming!"
Sonny: "Sal, Wyoming's not a country!"

Copyright © 23.9.2004 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang [HAVE YOUR SAY]