Summer of Sam ««½
R, 142m. 1999
Cast & Credits: John Leguizamo (Vinny), Adrien Brody (Ritchie), Mira Sorvino (Dionna), Jennifer Esposito (Ruby), Anthony LaPaglia (Det. Petrocelli), Ben Gazzara (Luigi), Bebe Neuwirth (Gloria), Michael Badalucco (David Berkowitz). Screenplay by Victor Colicchio, Michael Imperioli and Spike Lee. Directed by Spike Lee.
Watching Summer of Sam, I found it didn’t take me long to figure out that director Spike Lee was deeply interested in the fear that gripped New York City the summer of 1977. That was the summer a serial killer calling himself the “Son of Sam” went on a murder spree targeting young women, mostly brunettes, and men if they happened to be with them at the time.
Lee has brilliantly taken us down this road before in 1989’s thought provoking Do the Right Thing which played out like a ticking bomb waiting to go off. That film had a lingering feeling of tension in the air. Somehow I knew that racial tempers between Italian and African Americans on a sweltering hot summer day in a New York suburb was going to come to a volatile conclusion with some innocent person getting caught in the crossfire.
The fuse that sets off a chain reaction in Summer of Sam are the killings and the bomb that goes off, albeit with a dull thud, is the paranoia a group of Italian Americans feel as they wonder if the killer is someone in their neighborhood they might know.
The short fuse, however, barely lets out a spark. There is no sense of anxiety and the film takes forever to reach its predictably tragic conclusion. Since criminal history has already told us the “Son of Sam” was eventually captured, all we can do is wait for yet another innocent poor soul to become the object of people’s rage.
Summer of Sam stars John Leguizamo as Vinny and Mira Sorvino as his wife, Dionna. The first time we meet them, they look like a couple of Hollywood celebrities at the Oscars as they are greeted by a number of admirers inside Vinny’s disco nightclub. The film traces Vinny’s rise and eventual fall as he struggles with his adultery and empty promises to Dionna to stay faithful.
What I found most troubling is the way the Italian Americans are portrayed in the film. They are the sorriest bunch of foul mouthed, misguided, morally corrupt, suspicious losers I have seen on screen since the characters in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 porn epic, Boogie Nights. Every morning Vinny hangs out with a group of Mafia thugs near the East River discussing who might be the killer as they deal drugs to anyone with the cash. As the friends talk, the camera pans in on a sign that says “Dead End” as though Lee’s message to us about these individuals is they have nowhere to go but down.
The picture’s memorable moments don’t come from these people. This is a movie about how they and concerned parents reacted to the terrifying events going on around them and Lee, whose home residence is in New York, treats this film as an homage to those horrific times. In one scene, Dionna’s father asks her to wear a blond wig since it is believed the suspect isn’t targeting blond women while the streets and nightclubs become ghost towns at night.
Lee captures everything that occurred that summer from the Yankees winning the World Series to the blackout that left New York City in the dark for hours. We see outside shots of drug induced partygoers trying to get inside Steve Rubell’s disco nightclub, Studio 54, and the musical soundtrack is filled with 70’s rock songs, some of them from the band, ABBA.
The most intriguing characters are the ones with the least screen time that include a mob boss (Ben Gazzara) who is asked by police to help capture the killer. Then there is the “Son of Sam” himself, David Berkowitz, who is played by Michael Badalucco of ABC’s The Practice.
Berkowitz almost takes center stage playing with his children’s blocks spelling out phrases like “Kill the dog” while yelling to a barking black Rottweiler outside to shut up. He is like Michael Myers, the masked killer from the Halloween movies but with emotion stalking his prey at night. When he speaks, it is in the form of the threatening letters he sends to newspaper reporter Jimmy Breslin with intent to kill again (Breslin makes a cameo appearance in the film). His capture spawns a media frenzy that is like a repeat of the 1994 Bronco chase between O.J. Simpson and the Los Angeles police.
I found Badalucco’s performance unsettling yet comical knowing I would feel guilty if I laughed, as though maybe I need a shower afterwards. Nor did I find it amusing when the main characters draw up lists of who they think the killer is that includes even the neighborhood priest. At one point, one of them says it is Reggie Jackson because the number on his shirt is 44 (newspapers at first called the Son of Sam the 44. Killer).
The real life David Berkowitz, now supposedly a born again Christian, who apparently is allowed to maintain his own website from prison (www.inetworld.net/hutrcc/david.htm), wasn’t happy with the film’s release according to a June 27, 1999 column film critic Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I am so sad about this,” Berkowitz told Ebert. “I know many old wounds will be opened. For those who have lost a loved one, they will have to relive the violent death of their family member over and over as the years go by.”
Indeed, it was those graphically violent scenes of victims being shot point blank in the face in Summer of Sam that I could have done without.
If Berkowitz really is sorry for what he’s done, it is no wonder he found the film upsetting. I did too. Perhaps if he ever sees it on network television or cable one day, he’ll think it is like looking in a mirror.
That’s how I felt watching it. After a while, I didn’t like what it was I was seeing.
©7/2/99
R, 142m. 1999
Cast & Credits: John Leguizamo (Vinny), Adrien Brody (Ritchie), Mira Sorvino (Dionna), Jennifer Esposito (Ruby), Anthony LaPaglia (Det. Petrocelli), Ben Gazzara (Luigi), Bebe Neuwirth (Gloria), Michael Badalucco (David Berkowitz). Screenplay by Victor Colicchio, Michael Imperioli and Spike Lee. Directed by Spike Lee.
Lee has brilliantly taken us down this road before in 1989’s thought provoking Do the Right Thing which played out like a ticking bomb waiting to go off. That film had a lingering feeling of tension in the air. Somehow I knew that racial tempers between Italian and African Americans on a sweltering hot summer day in a New York suburb was going to come to a volatile conclusion with some innocent person getting caught in the crossfire.
The fuse that sets off a chain reaction in Summer of Sam are the killings and the bomb that goes off, albeit with a dull thud, is the paranoia a group of Italian Americans feel as they wonder if the killer is someone in their neighborhood they might know.
The short fuse, however, barely lets out a spark. There is no sense of anxiety and the film takes forever to reach its predictably tragic conclusion. Since criminal history has already told us the “Son of Sam” was eventually captured, all we can do is wait for yet another innocent poor soul to become the object of people’s rage.
Summer of Sam stars John Leguizamo as Vinny and Mira Sorvino as his wife, Dionna. The first time we meet them, they look like a couple of Hollywood celebrities at the Oscars as they are greeted by a number of admirers inside Vinny’s disco nightclub. The film traces Vinny’s rise and eventual fall as he struggles with his adultery and empty promises to Dionna to stay faithful.
What I found most troubling is the way the Italian Americans are portrayed in the film. They are the sorriest bunch of foul mouthed, misguided, morally corrupt, suspicious losers I have seen on screen since the characters in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 porn epic, Boogie Nights. Every morning Vinny hangs out with a group of Mafia thugs near the East River discussing who might be the killer as they deal drugs to anyone with the cash. As the friends talk, the camera pans in on a sign that says “Dead End” as though Lee’s message to us about these individuals is they have nowhere to go but down.
The picture’s memorable moments don’t come from these people. This is a movie about how they and concerned parents reacted to the terrifying events going on around them and Lee, whose home residence is in New York, treats this film as an homage to those horrific times. In one scene, Dionna’s father asks her to wear a blond wig since it is believed the suspect isn’t targeting blond women while the streets and nightclubs become ghost towns at night.
Lee captures everything that occurred that summer from the Yankees winning the World Series to the blackout that left New York City in the dark for hours. We see outside shots of drug induced partygoers trying to get inside Steve Rubell’s disco nightclub, Studio 54, and the musical soundtrack is filled with 70’s rock songs, some of them from the band, ABBA.
The most intriguing characters are the ones with the least screen time that include a mob boss (Ben Gazzara) who is asked by police to help capture the killer. Then there is the “Son of Sam” himself, David Berkowitz, who is played by Michael Badalucco of ABC’s The Practice.
Berkowitz almost takes center stage playing with his children’s blocks spelling out phrases like “Kill the dog” while yelling to a barking black Rottweiler outside to shut up. He is like Michael Myers, the masked killer from the Halloween movies but with emotion stalking his prey at night. When he speaks, it is in the form of the threatening letters he sends to newspaper reporter Jimmy Breslin with intent to kill again (Breslin makes a cameo appearance in the film). His capture spawns a media frenzy that is like a repeat of the 1994 Bronco chase between O.J. Simpson and the Los Angeles police.
I found Badalucco’s performance unsettling yet comical knowing I would feel guilty if I laughed, as though maybe I need a shower afterwards. Nor did I find it amusing when the main characters draw up lists of who they think the killer is that includes even the neighborhood priest. At one point, one of them says it is Reggie Jackson because the number on his shirt is 44 (newspapers at first called the Son of Sam the 44. Killer).
The real life David Berkowitz, now supposedly a born again Christian, who apparently is allowed to maintain his own website from prison (www.inetworld.net/hutrcc/david.htm), wasn’t happy with the film’s release according to a June 27, 1999 column film critic Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I am so sad about this,” Berkowitz told Ebert. “I know many old wounds will be opened. For those who have lost a loved one, they will have to relive the violent death of their family member over and over as the years go by.”
Indeed, it was those graphically violent scenes of victims being shot point blank in the face in Summer of Sam that I could have done without.
If Berkowitz really is sorry for what he’s done, it is no wonder he found the film upsetting. I did too. Perhaps if he ever sees it on network television or cable one day, he’ll think it is like looking in a mirror.
That’s how I felt watching it. After a while, I didn’t like what it was I was seeing.
©7/2/99
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