Rating of
3/4
A bank robbery gone horribly wrong!
MovieAddict - wrote on 03/10/12
Based on a true story Al Pacino portrays Sonny, a gay man who has left his wife and kids and is now living with a man who has confessed to him he's a transgender individual and the doctors have recommended a sex change for him. Sonny gets the crazy idea to rob a bank to get enough money to pay for his lover’s sex change operation.
He and his buddy John Cazale enter the Chase Manhattan First Savings Bank in Flatbush, Brooklyn hoping to carry out a quick robbery. They're supposed to be in and out one thing leads to another and they quickly find themselves trapped and surrounded by hundreds of New York's finest holding a bunch of unfortunate bank employees’ hostage.
I can't get over how young Pacino looks here and his mesmerizing performance is awe inspiring stuff, he mixes comedy and pathos, screaming profanity one moment, and quietly sympathetic the next. John Cazale is amazing as Sal. Slow-witted (Sal - any country; WYOMING haha) and along for the ride. He is a brooding ticking time bomb prepared to kill anyone who so much as moves.
If the idea of an entire two hour movie solely based on a single bank robbery sound boring then I would have to agree with you. But Dog Day Afternoon is extremely intriguing. Al Pacino is absolutely fantastic in this role, I would rate it a close second to his performance in the first Godfather.
