Summer
of Sam
Rated R
Now playing
New York City. Summer. 1977. A heat wave hits the city with
record-breaking temperatures; a power blackout causes mass
lootings; Reggie Jackson helps take the Yankees to the World
Series; disco is hot. Punk explodes and a schlumpy, creepy-eyed
postal worker named David Berkowitz is killing people: New
Yorkers living in ethnic boroughs of the city; people who
park to make out after lusty drug and dance sessions; people
who walk to their apartments and jam their keys into triple-locked
doors; girls with shoulder-length brown hair. The self-titled
Son of Sam systematically guns them down in cold blood. No
fuss, just murder--nothing personal.
Director Spike Lee wants to make it personal, not for the
victims but for those inhabiting this unsteady atmosphere
of urban madness. In Summer of Sam, his most ambitious
film yet, the filmmaker chronicles this tumultuous summer
with often inspired, often flawed and always interesting
results. Touching nearly every cultural, sexual, racial,
religious, historical and homicidal nerve, Sam causes
you to simultaneously think about the dangerous present
while reminiscing about the almost innocently decadent past.
Drugs were happily plentiful, Reggie Jackson's smile was
genuine, sex was AIDS-free, and the word "serial killer"
had barely become part of the national lexicon. Unfortunately,
because of some extraneous characters, derivative camera
work and an overly long running time, the movie isn't tight
enough to maintain the tension or the panic. Still, it is
captivating and, most importantly, resonant.
Lee centers his picture on a group of Italian-American
friends living in the Bronx neighborhood where Berkowitz
struck most. Vinny (John Leguizamo) is a philandering, disco-dancing
hairdresser who's tormented with guilt over stepping out
on his wife, Dionna (Mira Sorvino). Vinny's best friend,
Ritchie (Adrien Brody), becomes, to the disgust of his friends,
a punk rocker. Vinny is the only one who accepts him, but
the friendship is tested. As Vinny's marriage grows more
and more unsteady, his strained allegiance to Ritchie reaches
a fever pitch, as does his drug use and inward obsession
with the Son of Sam killings--almost as if the killer is
speaking to his patchy conscience. Also fanatical about
the killings are Vinny's loutish friends (excluding Ritchie),
who express their fear like a lynch mob and make a list
of suspects to tail.
There are also smaller stories, one involving a local mobster
(Ben Gazzara) whom the police go to for help with the case,
and one about Berkowitz himself, who is shown as a raving
madman, screaming at the sounds of a barking dog, a dirty
pillow smashed over his ears. These two unnecessary subplots
reveal just some of the film's weaknesses, chiefly, the
continual, dreamlike, stereotypical "madman" cuts to Berkowitz,
which are more ridiculous than creepy: It would have been
much scarier had he been portrayed simply as a shadowy pall
hanging over the summer.
Still, other atmospheric elements of the film work terrifically,
even if a bit predictably. The disco music adds energy,
and any movie that plays the Who's "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't
Get Fooled Again" in their entirety for two breathtaking
montages is worth seeing. The costuming, filming and gritty
backdrop are gloriously seedy, creepy and effective in establishing
the gloom surrounding these disillusioned yet carefree characters.
The cast is also wonderful, especially Leguizamo, who should
be starring in more movies. One of the most charismatic
actors working presently in film, he has the face, the emotional
depth, the anger, the lovability, the sleaziness and the
moves necessary to convey not just a Travolta-inspired Lothario
but a sad, vulnerable soul heading toward rock bottom.
But even as the movie excels in moments of gut-wrenching
power, it still suffers from Lee's usual shoplifting from
other films. There is, of course, Saturday Night Fever,
in which a sensitive guy is surrounded by brutes, while
his buddy becomes an outsider. There are also Quadrophenia
references during a fight scene in which a friend watches
his best buddy get the shit kicked out of him for being
different. These are inspirations, and they work well here,
but when it gets too derivative of Martin Scorsese, the
film becomes tedious. After familiar shots straight out
of Taxi Driver, Mean Streets and Goodfellas,
you begin to think that maybe Scorsese should have made
this. He probably would have turned it into an American
masterpiece.
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 7, 1999
|
