Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
A critically underappreciated film, January 28, 2002
| By | Eric Wahl (Bozeman, MT, USA) |
Given the press reviews that came out upon this movie's release and a number of the reviews here, I'm going to buck the trend and suggest to you that Summer of Sam is actually one of Spike Lee's very best films. Perhaps it was marketed ineffectively, but Lee clearly never intended this movie to be about The Killer. Rather, Summer of Sam is about paranoia, conflicting ideas of community, and trusting one's self against and through an intense period of: the heat, economic downturn, sexual adventurousness, and drugs that were the late 1970's. The Son of Sam's killing spree in NYC in 1977 triggered a fear and panic in the city that often made people who knew each other for years suddenly suspicious of one another. At the time of its release this movie was roundly criticized for Lee's portrayal of Italian men as "stereotypical 'Guidos,'" but I would ask those folks who make such claims to consider this: if we say that a stereotype is a fixed, unvarying conception of a person, then why aren't all the Italian men in this film exactly the same in their actions and manners? Were there no Italian men in NYC'77 who were quite like the three "Guidos" in Summer of Sam? And do you honsetly believe that Spike Lee intends for these three men to represent ALL Italian men? Of course not. And do we see examples of Italian men in Summer of Sam who are not "Guidos"? Several. The characters are rendered masterfully, I think, and John Leguizamo gives an amazingly rich and layered performance as a man who cheats on his wife BECAUSE his curious religious convictions convince him his sexual desires are too perverse to ask of her. When he comes perilously close to two of Sam's victims, Leguizamo's character undergoes an intense but ultimately doomed period of guilt and self-doubt that he tries to address but cannot--his desire to be good to his wife is very real, yet this desire is overpowered by his sexual desires. In this vein the movie becomes an investigation of how people, "good" and "bad," address their own desires--for sex, for status, for security. And the paranoia created by he Son of Sam's killings creates strange bedfellows indeed: the "Guidos" protect an effeminate gay local because he is a good customer in their drug trade, but they harrass a guy they grew up around because he starts spiking his hair and listening to punk music; the local mafia boss bankrolls a neighborhood block party so people can have a good time in relative safety . . . because he's also provided the "Guidos" with baseball bats to protect everyone. This movie is far more complex than most reviewers seem to indicate. An excellent score and soundtrack that never overwhelms the action, and a gifted cast that delivers memorable performances, many of which should have been award-worthy (Leguizamo, certainly, but also the poignant and determined Mira Sorvino character, Adrien Brody's nearly-doomed punk rock dreamer, and the alarmingly unheralded Jennifer Esposito as the local tramp who really wants to change who falls in love with the punk rocker). The film's climax, in which the wrong man is attacked and beaten by the "Guidos" (having been lured out of his house by his own conflicted friend) plays simultaneously with the capture and arrest of the real killer, and it is so masterfully rendered I don't think I'll ever forget it. Bookended by commentary from notorious/ubiquitous/beloved NYC columnist Jimmy Breslin, Summer of Sam, as Lee surely did intend, is far more than a movie about seeming stereotypes and disco music during a scary time in the city. It deserves a closer look by anyone interested in Lee's singular grasp of human dynamics and desires. It would be a shame for people to write this movie off as a misfire, for it is no such thing.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Spike Takes On Sam, March 13, 2002
| By | Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA)
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Summer of Sam is Spike Lee's take on the true story of how the serial killer David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, placed New York City in the grip of fear during 1977. The movie is not a look at Berkowitz himself, but at an Italian-American community in the Bronx. The two central characters are Vinnie and Richie played by John Leguizamo and Adrian Brody respectively. Vinnie is married Dionna (Mira Sorvino), but he is wildly unfaithful to her. This is a source of confusion for Vinnie, because of his religion, he wants to be faithful to his wife, but he thinks it's a sin to do all the wild...acts he performs with the girls he sleeps with. Richie had left the neighborhood, but recently came back. He is virtually unrecognizable to the guys in the hood as he is a punk rocker with incredible spiked hair and he has taken up an English accent. Richie and the neighborhood [girl], Ruby (Jennifer Espisito) start going together and he introduces her in his bizarre world of playing in a punk rock band and dancing in a...theater. All this happens with the Son of Sam killings as a backdrop. Not only were the killings happening that summer, but the City was gripped by the biggest heatwave in history and an infamous blackout. Despite a spirited performance by Mr. Leguizamo, the film never really succeeds. The convoluted plot on how the semi-mob related guys in the neighborhood think Richie is the Son of Sam never rings true or seems believable. Certain characters like Anthony LaPaglia's cop who is investigating the killings appear and then disappear without adding much to the plot. Mr. Lee does do a great job of intertwine actual footage and events into the film and the closing scene when Berkowitz (played by The Practice's Michael Badalucco) is captured and brought into the station and the guys are hunting down Richie is intense and exhilaratingly set to The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again". Overall Summer of Sam is a decent movie, but disappointing in that it could have been a great film.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?, September 27, 2001
| By | Eik Nyl "E"
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John Leguizamo is a talented and diverse actor. Mira Sorvino also has a number of roles on her resume that distinguish her as gifted in the diversity department. These roles in Summer of Sam are not particularly flattering of their skills, nor is the script particularly well written. The script jumps around quite a bit, trying to illustrate the lives of several characters during this period of "terror" in New York, when a crazed, maniacal killer was running through the city murdering dark haired women. There is too much of the debauchery of the day emphasised-the drugging, the clubbing, the sex party orgies, and Leguizamo's character's complete inability to be faithful to his wife, played by Sorvino. Leguizamo is having an affair with his boss (Bebe Neuwirth) and just about all his clients (he is a hairdresser). And basically any other woman he meets. And yet he cannot seem to perform with his wife. The fact that we know all these things about him really does not lend credibility to the film . We know far more about his sexual proclivities than we know about anything else in this film. In fact it is never quite clear what we are supposed to be getting from this film. It tries, but it never gets where it wants to go.
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