The film begins with a montage of mundane vistas of a day in New York City. There are cars on the road, people on the street and people are going about their business - a regular day. Then we witness a bank robbery, very realistic and quite very regular, very ordinary, at first. However, the straight forward robbery turns into a hostage drama and that's when we get the extraordinary - the whole city seems to come to a standstill, the entire NYPD and the FBI seem to converge at the scene, the TV networks and reporters are breathless as ever, a big crowd surrounds the crime scene, chanting and jeering, as if taking part in this diversion to pass their boring day.
It is Al Pacino as Sonny, the leader of the two bank robbers, who commands one's attention. Watching this film for the first time now, more than 35 years later and with Pacino mythos firmly in head, it is quite a thrill to see his young self throw himself fully into the role. Sonny shows craziness in his eyes at one moment and kindness the next. He is a showman, inciting the crowd against the police, needling them. He is the mastermind of the crime, with his prior experience having worked in a bank but though steadfast, still a novice in planning the robbery and then the hostage negotiations. His partner-in-crime Sal thinks Wyoming is a good country for escape. While Sonny is not that naive, his plan of escaping to Algeria seems quite uninformed.
It is Sonny's personal relationships and his backstory that leads up to the fateful attempted robbery that gives the emotional thrust of the story. His wife is a constant nag who doesn't let him say a word. His parents, especially his mother, need his monetary support and give haranguing in return. As he says, he has all these "pressures" of money and emotion because of which he is "dying in here."
Yet, the main motivation for Sonny's pressures is not only unique but quite surprising: that this gun-totting, foul mouthed, Vietnam vet is a gay man who is compelled to rob the bank to help his male "wife" get a sex-change operation. Sidney Lumet, the director, introduces this strange element of Sonny's life so matter-of-factly and so precisely that there is no artificiality in the story. Some cops laugh, the crowd starts to jeer their previous hero and a gay crowd chants Sonny's name, but the story moves on because for the film as in real that this is just one new strange discovery on this already quite strange day.
I wondered if this film hadn't been based on a true story, what would people make of Sonny's homosexual motivations. But as is said, truth is stranger than fiction. In this fictionalized true story ("30% true," as Wikipedia reports) all the parts fit, the progression is natural and believable and so very engrossing.
No comments:
Post a Comment