Dog Day Afternoon (Special Edition)
The robbery should have taken ten minutes. Eight hours later, it was the hottest thing on live TV. And it's all true.
On a hot Brooklyn afternoon, two optimistic nobodies set out to rob a bank. Sonny (Al Pacino) is the mastermind, Sal (John Cazale) is the follower, and disaster is the result because the cops, crowds, TV cameras, and even the pizza man have arrived.
Pacino and director Sidney Lumet (collaborators on Serpico) reteam for this boisterous comedy thriller that earned six Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and won an Oscar for Frank Pierson's streetwise screenplay. Based on a true incident, Dog Day Afternoon "is one of the big ones, swarming with energy, excitement, and drama." (Gene Shalit - Today Show/ NBC).
Member Reviews
Bizarre Hostage Situation Bizarrely Resolved - c4th
SPOILER ALERT!
Dog Day Afternoon chronicles one of the most bizarre bank robbery and hostage situations you’ll ever see. It took place in Brooklyn in the early seventies. At several points, the movie looks like it’s going to diverge into a comedy but the seriousness of the ordeal always prevails. This is merely testament to just how crazy the whole incident and some of the involved characters actually were.
Al Pacino is outstanding as Sonny, a frustrated working man who cracks to the pressures of a life in which he strives to support and assist others. In a reactionary frame of mind, he decides to rob a bank. As the caper begins to fall apart, Sonny’s mood as a frantic fish out of water trying to control his predicament is deftly captured by Pacino. The true level of Sonny’s instability becomes apparent when he begins making outlandish demands and even more so when he obviously believes they are being met.
Pacino’s performance is reason enough to watch the movie. We also get an entertaining glimpse of applied psychology as we watch the manner in which police and FBI bring the episode to a conclusion - a conclusion which on the screen seems a bit abrupt and anticlimactic, just as it often is in real life.Attica! Attica! - KandM
This film's reputation as a classic of American cinema preceded it... but when we started watching it, we realised how little we knew about the story. To be so continuously surprised by something that you've heard so much about is a wonderful movie-going experience.
Watch it. You'll be glad you did. Then you'll find yourself hunting the internet to discover what happened to the real-life characters after the events of the movie story ended.You can't make this up. - Doronik
No wonder this is based on a true story. If it was just a fictional plot I would be surprised it made it to a movie. I mean really, a bisexual guy that is having very deep mental issues robs a bank with a moron of a partner to finance his "husbands" sex change operation. Only in America... Glad I'm Canadian. All in all the movie was pretty good with fairly solid acting. A little disjointed here and there but not a bad early Pacino flick
Member Reviews
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Bizarre Hostage Situation Bizarrely Resolved - c4th
SPOILER ALERT!
Dog Day Afternoon chronicles one of the most bizarre bank robbery and hostage situations you’ll ever see. It took place in Brooklyn in the early seventies. At several points, the movie looks like it’s going to diverge into a comedy but ...Attica! Attica! - KandM
This film's reputation as a classic of American cinema preceded it... but when we started watching it, we realised how little we knew about the story. To be so continuously surprised by something that you've heard so much about is a wonderful movie-going experience. ...You can't make this up. - Doronik
No wonder this is based on a true story. If it was just a fictional plot I would be surprised it made it to a movie. I mean really, a bisexual guy that is having very deep mental issues robs a bank with a moron of a partner to finance his "husbands" sex ...