Summer of Sam

1977 was the very first year I gained a real inkling of Time. It was the first year I actually understood why this year is 1977 and next year will be 1978 (even if a year seemed to take the equivalent of four back then… and, adversely, a year nowadays flits by in less than six months).

This film is set during the (American) summer of 1977, the summer that David Berkowitz, The Son of Sam, killed six people and injured seven others by firing a pistol into parked cars (usually where folks were making out inside). In a small Italian American neighbourhood where our sordid tale takes place, tempers are high among the community as Berkowitz kills indiscriminately within the familiar streets.

We follow the exploits of a bunch of Italian Americans who have grown up knowing each other. Vinny (John Leguizamo) and Dionna (Mira Sorvino) have been married for two years yet Vinny can’t help cheating on her with other women. His excuse is that he can’t ask his wife to fulfil his sexual fantasies as that would be a ‘sin’. Dionna suspects he’s cheating and begins exploring methods by which she can please her man. Vinny’s best friend, Ritchie (Adrian Brody), is a punk and one of the first to adopt the principles of such. His friends think he’s a vampire or something. He starts dating Ruby, a former town bike, and to make money they enter into porn films and gay stripping.

All the while, Berkowitz is reducing the community to blind fear; a fear so tangible it is forcing the community to look within itself and see things that aren’t there.

Anyone ‘different’ is labeled suspicious and, eventually, Ritchie turns up as the number one suspect. Meanwhile, Vinny and Dionna are going through a very difficult period and it's after one particularly different night out that Vinny’s hypocrisy suddenly causes things to escalate. Combined with the soaring temperatures and the baseless suspicion of Ritchie, matters are boiling over in extremis.

Well known for his love of New York and minorities, Spike Lee has co-written the script here and has used numerous metaphors to capture the desperation of the group of friends. They frequently meet at the end of their street to do little more than hang out (that the road stops at the filthy river right by a 'Dead End' sign seems to be lost on the participants). Spike’s love of non-conformists is exacerbated here with Ritchie’s dynamic and his sorethumbness among his former peers. They blindly follow Joey T. for little more reason than he is the largest. Spike even manages a joke at himself playing a black reporter working for the man.

The dissection of Vinny’s character is flawless by Leguizamo in the ever-growing tension of the film. From the first we witness a husband obviously desperately in love with his wife, though as the film progresses and the summer escalates, and as Berkowitz continues his bloody rampage, Vinny’s character becomes increasingly more disturbed by his own pathetic behaviours. And as his conscience decays around him, so does his world, the world of Berkowitz and the world of New York as all metaphorically descend into Hell. There’s a nice parallel between Berkowitz – Mr. Monster as he called himself – and his self-loathing and hatred of women and Vinny who wrestles with his own inner demons and misogynistic hatred.

If Spike Lee has one fault here it is in the length of this film. At 136 minutes, this goes on a little too long for us to stay as involved as we need to be. However, the attention to detail in setting the summer of 1977 is flawless, even if the film seems to go on a little more like the four years length I felt as a kid.

Another great Buena Vista transfer here with little to fault it. The image is fairly sharp and while there are film artefacts, they aren’t huge or disturbing (in fact it's sorta in keeping with the theme anyway). Colours are nicely saturated and even with good flesh tones, realistic blacks and good shadow detail. The only time the blacks fluctuate is to a deep, well-lit blue, though this appears deliberate. At any rate it only appears the once, so I must assume it is. The Berkowitz vignettes are a nicely oiled green lending the madness of his life to the imagery and these look very modern and very cool. To bring us this delicious picture, we have the aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with anamorphocitynessness.

Dialogue is mainly clear in this Dolby Digital 5.1 surround dealie. There are a few heavier accents that find a couple of words misheard, but nothing of any real note. The sound effects are good and evenly balanced with the rest of the soundscape, but the winner here goes to the musical accompaniment of the piece. A nice orchestral score by Terence Blanchard fills in the gaps perfectly between the wide variety of musical bits from the age. ABBA, Marvin Gaye, The Who, Barry White, Grace Jones, Talking Heads and even Elton John and Kiki Dee all turn up, with the latter singing that appalling duet of theirs. Eurgh. They all sound awesome though, with some nice surround channel use carrying the music around the room and the subwoofer doing backing vocals.

Someone got to these ahead of us and pinched them. What a shame and what a missed opportunity to give us a bunch of info about the real Son of Sam killings or even something about fitting out a film set in 1977 would have been welcome here. Boo!

I watched this one a few years back and was less than thrilled, but enjoyed it a whole lot more this time around. Maybe that has to do with the ‘70s being in, I dunno (to me, the ‘70s will never be in). Performances here are brilliant from all cast members though the headliners of Sorvino, Leguizamo and Brody are the movie. Without them, this film would not be anywhere near as good. Even Spike Lee’s fun turn as a reporter delivering inherently wooden lines is worth the look (if only to see an old black woman make fun of him for not supporting black people).

A disappointing absence of extras clouds the release here and it’s not as if the film can’t stand alone, but it would have been all the sweeter with a few bones thrown to us dogs.