Dog Gone It

Bragging itself a true story, Dog Day Afternoon brims with a weird authenticity that would be easy to dismiss were it not made during the American 70s, that marvelous period when injustice and absurdity converged, creating a country disillusioned by war and drugs; a country whose citizens grew weary of its authority figures, particularly in cities where corruption and scandal ran as rampant as bell-bottom jeans and afros. Hollywood took note and handed its house keys to a small band of outsiders disenfranchised by the status quo. From this unlikely pairing a new kind of urban anti-hero was born, lone wolves, bloodied by a falling society, who each night sat in front of their mirror, looking for who they once were and seeing nothing but a last resort. For Sidney Lumet, a true life bank job proves the perfect character study. He centers his hero in a circus of law enforcement, media, and passerby who have christened the bank robber their rebel surrogate. In the above clip, Sonny is happy to oblige his new found public and trades fire with a bumbling, trigger-happy police squad.

Too Late

Sidney Lumet's masterful Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a bleak affair of family staking family for easy gains and fast cash. It is not unlike Fargo in how a full proof heist goes awry almost immediately. This is the sort of plan that should never be planned. And like the Coen's, Lumet is as interested in the humanity behind the scheme. The above clip is just that. The schemer, Philip Seymour Hoffman, seeks refuge from a backwards reality; down is up, left is right, and hell is 60-stories high. There is no heaven.