# 165 Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Dog Day Afternoon tells us a story of the bank robbery that happened in New York in 1972. The title refers to the "dog days" which are the hottest, most sultry days of summer. After the robbers realize that they are surrounded by the police, and there will be no simple escape for them, they take bank employees hostage. Later on, we discover that one of the criminals, played by Al Pacino, is gay, and his main goal was to steal his share of the money to pay for his "wife's" sex reassignment surgery.

I knew that Al Pacino's plays a homosexual in this movie before I started watching it, and I was wondering how he was going to pull this off. You know how he always plays though guys, with this yelling voice that has become his signature. But I'm glad that he gave it a try because no matter how good he was in his other movies, I couldn't help thinking that he always plays the same character over and over again, and Dog Day Afternoon proved me wrong. Of course the stylists did their thing, but Pacino's acting was very persuasive as well.

John Cazale deserves a couple of words in this review also. In my personal opinion, in this movie he did a lot better than in The Godfather or The Deer Hunter. The role of a quiet psycho who points his gun at the hostages every time he loses his nerve fits him perfectly. I never actually figured out what was wrong with his character, but I'm pretty sure he had some kind of mental disorder. And the part where he gets upset because on TV the robbers were described as "two homosexuals" is probably one of the funniest parts of the movie.

Talking about funny, IMDb defines the film as a criminal drama, and I'm surprised that it doesn't mention "comedy" as one of its genres because some of the scenes, especially at the beginning of the movie, are indeed very humorous. The fact that one of the robbers used to work in a bank and knows all of the tricks doesn't stop him from making every possible mistake and turning the robbery into a nightmare. But I going to stop here, so I don't ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it yet. All I'm going to say is that I've never seen a bank heist like this before!

Interesting fact: In the 1972 "Life" magazine article that inspired the film, P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore describe robber John Wojtowicz as "a dark, thin fellow with the broken-faced good looks of an Al Pacino or a Dustin Hoffman". Al Pacino, of course, played the role based on Wojtowicz, and when he nearly quit the film early on, the role was offered to Dustin Hoffman. Pacino changed his mind when he heard that his rival was in the fray.

Favorite quote: Sonny: So what country do you want to go to?

Sal: Wyoming.

Sonny: Sal, Wyoming's not a country.