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SUMMER OF SAM Send This Review to a Friend
Spike Lee doesn't deal in subtlety. When he makes a movie he clobbers us. Fortunately his latest subject, the intensity of life in New York during the summer of 1977, lends itself to Lee's style and the result is a rousing panorama ranging from personal dramas to the Son of Sam murders that terrorized the public and fed copy to the tabloids. Jimmy Breslin, whose journalism career was boosted when Son of Sam targeted him with letters, frames the film with his jaunty commentary expressing his love and hate feelings toward New York.
Lee astutely packages his material, from the dramatic start to the zippy final credits presented on a series of mock tabloid front pages. The Son of Sam case isn't the main point but an unnerving device enabling him to explore the lives of assorted characters and happenings that summer, including a blackout, looting, a heat wave, sports events, group sex at Plato's Retreat, and the music and disco scene. We meet cocky but none too bright neighborhood guys, who hang out and brag about their conquests, and the women who put up with them. We encounter the Mafia types called upon by the cops to help catch the elusive serial killer.
John Leguizamo, who built his reputation as a standup ethnic comedian, proves himself an excellent actor as Vinny, a hairdresser married to Dionna, played by Mira Sorvino. She captures Dionna's sensitivity as well as the pathos stemming from the problems she has with her philandering husband. Vinny is consumed with erotic desires that he can only fulfill with other women because his hypocritical moral and religious code doesn't permit him such sexual freedom with his wife, who would be very willing to please if she knew what he wanted. Although the relationship and the characters are delineated powerfully, the film's preoccupation with the couple goes on too long.
The colorful entourage assembled by Lee and casting director Aisha Coley includes Adrien Brody, a real acting find, as Ritchie, who irks the neighborhood guys and triggers their intolerance because he chooses to be different, talking like a London rocker, spiking his hair and wearing punk outfits. They decide he's Son of Sam. Bebe Neuwirth owns the hair salon where Vinny works and is hot for him. Patti LuPone as Ritchie's mother has a funny, breast-baring scene of lovemaking with Ritchie's father (Mike Starr) which Ritchie inadvertently interrupts. Ben Gazzara provides toughness and humor as the local mobster honcho. Michael Badalucco is the infamous Son of Sam, and when the dog that commands him to kill talks, the voice belongs to John Turturro. Lee gives himself a role as a TV news reporter, and numerous personalities play themselves--Phil Rizuto, Jim Jensen, Ernie Anastos, Reggie Jackson.
A strong believer in the power of movie music, Lee spices the action with a music soundtrack that helps keep the energy and sound levels high. The effect is to create a jangling, vigorous journey into New York lore that is upsetting and entertaining in equal parts. Interestingly, this time Lee's movie isn't about race, aside from a few pointed references. The director, who wrote the screenplay with Victor Colicchio and Michael Imperioli, is after a broader picture of what it would have been like for those caught up in New York of 1977. A Buena Vista release.
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