AKA Yelling: The Movie.
The opening title card tells us everything we’re about to see in the movie really happened, before jolting us into the streets of Brooklyn. It’s a typical summer afternoon - we get glimpses of all walks of life, set to Elton John’s “Amoreena.” A wrench is thrown into this otherwise normal day when we meet a group men sitting in a car outside the local bank. If you’ve ever seen a movie before, you know what happens next. But if you’ve never seen Dog Day Afternoon, well… there’s no possible way to know what happens next.
What is immediately apparent from Sidney Lumet’s 1975 film is its uncompromising humanity: the moment Al Pacino pulls his gun from the wrapped box with some difficulty, we know we’re not exactly in Ocean’s 11 territory. There’s no posing, no flashy attempts at being slick or cool. This is a story about people, and the very things that make them human - their faults, their fears, their genuine affection and their horrible prejudice. The turns the story takes definitely fall into the “so weird it has to be true” category, but no matter how absurd the story gets, Lumet never loses sight of the basic humanity of his characters. It would have been easy to let the material get away from him, but Lumet crafts a movie that is equal parts tense, hilarious and brutally naked in its emotion - much of that due to Al Pacino’s virtuoso performance.
Is this Pacino’s best role? I don’t know… I can’t remember any other role the actor had that required the naked honesty Pacino brings to Sonny Wortzik, the bank-robber turned hostage-taker whose day just keeps getting worse and worse. Pacino handles all of his scenes with a deft touch, whether he’s eliciting laughs (his pause after realizing his partner thinks Wyoming is a country) or tears (a remarkable phone conversation he has late in the film with his male wife Leon, played by Chris Sarandon). Making Pacino’s portrayal all the more affecting is the general lack of insight into Sonny’s psychology. We don’t know anything about Sonny when he and his cohorts take the bank in the beginning, and the details we are able to parse out over the course of the film never really give us a clear picture of what drove Sonny to rob a bank to get the money he needs - we know the "why," but never get a clear picture of the specifics. Pacino gives us a character who has been weighed down by life - be it his overbearing mother or his overbearing wife or the strain of his relationship with his other wife or the ghosts of Vietnam that still haunt him - Sonny’s at the end of his rope, and we never really get a definitive reason for his desperation. Which is okay, because Pacino’s performance is all unfettered emotion - making us feel everything Sonny feels as the film goes on, even though we may not be sure as to exactly why.
The rest of the cast falls in line with Pacino’s rawness, as most of the hostages feel more like background members of a documentary more than actors here. Same goes for the cops, featuring an especially moving turn by Charles Durning as the police detective who first tries to talk Sonny down. Their dialogue at times feels improvised on the spot, as they start and sputter much like they would in reality in such tense conversations. Also making an early appearance is Lance Henriksen, who has one of those small but pivotal roles that makes you say, “This cat’s got a career ahead of him” as an FBI agent towards the end.
One cat who most certainly would have had a career had he lived longer is John Cazale, who plays Sonny’s unstable partner who doesn’t know Wyoming’s not a country, Sal. Cazale only appeared in five films before succumbing to lung cancer in 1978: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Quite the pedigree, and Cazale was a welcome presence in each - content to stand off on the sidelines, always providing the perfect springboard for fellow, more volatile actors like Pacino. We know even less about Sal than we do Sonny, and while Cazale’s portrayal keeps us in the dark on Sal and whatever tragic that story led him to this moment, that uncertainty only adds to the tension - we’re never sure what Sal will do next. Neither is Sonny, who becomes more and more worried when he has to leave the disturbed and broken Sal alone with the hostages.
The building tension is what’s most remarkable about Lumet’s film, and the way he keeps that tension alive while balancing it with genuine humor and character moments. I believe only two gunshots are fired throughout the entire film, but the intensity and the pace quicken with the runtime. Through handheld shots and some expert editing, Lumet crafts an exciting thriller, but the subject matter dealt with is what truly elevates the film. Sonny quickly realizes that the crowds gathering around the bank gives him a certain power over the cops - he’s in way over his head, and incites the crowd and the media out of a desperation to have some control over his situation, not really knowing the power of the flames he's fanning. The media is a rabid beast, just as likely to bite you as it is anyone else - and once Sonny’s personal life is revealed things get ugly - on both sides, those in support of and against Sonny’s plight. The media circus is always just one element of many, and Lumet never lets it overwhelm the story or the characters - but it's something that clearly lit a fuse in the director’s head, as he would later explore said themes more thoroughly the next year in 1976’s Network.
The real-life Sonny, John Wojtowicz, was charged with twenty years in prison but only served six, and lived until dying of cancer in 2005. When asked about the film, he remarked it was only “30% accurate,” but gave his approval of Al Pacino’s performance. And how could he not? When one of the greatest actors of all time gives one of the greatest performances in film history, its accuracy is almost irrelevant. Whatever the real details were, Lumet and Pacino and all those involved in Dog Day Afternoon captured what’s most important in any film: emotional honesty.
* Some strange art-imitating-life-imitating-art ouroboros: John Wojtowicz apparently based much of his plot on The Godfather - meaning Al Pacino and John Cazale wound up portraying an event they somewhat inspired.
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