Sidney Lumet - Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

In August, 1972, Sonny Wortzik robbed a bank. 250 cops, the F.B.I., 8 hostages and 2,000 onlookers will never forget what took place. The robbery should have taken 10 minutes. Four hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. Eight hours later, it was the hottest thing on live T.V. Twelve hours later, it was all history. And it's all true.

Dos delincuentes de poca monta deciden atracar la sucursal de un banco de Brooklyn, pero su falta de dedicación y de experiencia hará que un robo que fue planeado para que durara apenas 10 minutos se convierta en una trampa para los atracadores y en un circo para la televisión en directo.




Arguably Sidney Lumet's best picture, Dog Day Afternoon is an incredibly lunatic but true-story of a loser, played with panache by Al Pacino, who holds up a Brooklyn bank to raise money for his lover's sex-change operation. Frank Pierson's Oscar-winning scenario is based on the vivid magazine article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore about the attempt to rob a branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank on August 22, 1972. The movie appears to be an accurate yet eccentric work, a logical follow-up to Lumet's previous film, the vitally fact-based policier, Serpico, also staring Al Pacino.

The film depicts a seemingly "simple" heist that snowballs in many unpredictable directions until it becomes a citywide incident, going way beyond the bank, its invaders and employees. The New York Times critic Vincent Canby has correctly noted that Lumet's quintessential New York movies are as much aspects of the city's life as well as stories of the city's life, in this case Brooklyn.




On one level, Dog Day Afternoon is a fact-inspired melodrama about a disastrously ill-planned bank robbery. On another, the film is a wild satire about the desperation of marginal, lunatic characters to get their share of the American Dream. By not taking sides or making value judgments, the film achieves great emotional impact, while remaining grounded, but not serious or earnest, in its particular concerns. Sharply scripted, the film begins with a major irony, that the bank's vault on that particular day has only $1,100. After the first reel, it becomes a gaudy chronicle of street-carnival, which encourages the viewers to wonder and laugh at the madness on screen, almost up to the end, often at the most inappropriate moments.

The two hoodlums, Sonny and partner Sal, are motivated by different goals. Seeking money for a sex-change operation for his boyfriend, Pacino's Sonny failed miserably after they held the bank's employees hostage for fourteen hours, during which they appeared live on TV and became the center of a neighborhood Mardi Gras, trying to negotiate for a Jet plane to fly them out of the country. The precisely-etched characterization is vividly brought to life by a brilliant cast of lead and supporting actors; there is not a single bad performance in the picture. Right after the first scene, we get a concrete sense of the complex tangle of a city in a state of crisis, distress, anger, and ultimately senseless violence.




Dog Day Afternoon is definitely one is of the finest American films of the modern age. It contains definitive performances from great actors, heartbreaking storytelling, stunningly simple imagery and so much great thematic material that audiences might not even know what aspect of the film to discuss first. It's the rare film that you can watch and then immediately rewatch and discover a host of wonderful new moments. Hopefully whole new audiences will discover this gem.

My rip with meGUI from the wonderful Warner HD-DVD.

Hay varias razones por las que Tarde de perros es una película diferente y, en consecuencia, ha pasado a la historia. Motivos que hacen que sea mucho más que una simple cinta de “atraco a un banco”.

En primer lugar, está basada en hechos reales. Detalle, hoy en día, quizás poco relevante, pero lo verdaderamente trascendente son las particularidades de los hechos en sí: un ladrón, Sonny, casado y con dos hijos, veterano de Vietnam, que decide robar el banco para que su amante, Leon, que se ha casado con Sonny vestido de mujer, pueda someterse a una operación de cambio de sexo.

Otra de las razones: Sidney Lumet. Lumet ensayó varias semanas con el grupo de actores que estarían encerrados en el banco (Pacino, su socio Cazale, y los rehenes); les animó, en contra de su habitual proceder, a improvisar y esas improvisaciones se plasmaron en el guión definitivo. El resultado es de una veracidad apabullante.




Desde luego, hacía falta un fuera de serie para soportar el peso de una función así. Hablamos del Pacino de los setenta, de un loco del Método, del actor probablemente más intenso de la historia del séptimo arte, de un animal de la interpretación. Lejos de la sobreactuación en la que terminó cayendo, aquí Pacino se merienda la pantalla de cabo a rabo sin caer en excesos; su rol de Sonny Wortzik es, sin duda, uno de los mejores que ha dado el cine: tan patético como tierno, impotente ante el deseo de contentar a todos, sus planes siempre fallidos, un corazón demasiado grande para triunfar en el crimen. No sólo eso: Pacino, además, arrastra consigo al malogrado Cazale y al resto del reparto, haciéndoles mejores; punto y aparte merece su conversación telefónica con Chris Sarandon, que interpreta a Leon. Impresionante.

Script/Guión: Frank Pierson (Article: P.F. Kluge, Thomas Moore. Book: Leslie Waller)
Cinematography/Fotografía: Victor J. Kemper
Cast/Reparto: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon, Sully Boyar, Penelope Allen, Beulah Garrick, James Broderick, Sandra Kazan, Marcia Jean Kurtz