Dog Day Afternoon

I know it shouldn't be surprising, but damn. This was a really good movie! Based on a true story and set in the post-Vietnam anti-establishment mid-'70s, Dog Day Afternoon is about a bank robbery that goes wrong right away and results in an all-day hostage situation. Al Pacino and John Cazale wind up bartering with authorities and releasing hostages one by one for favors from the police and FBI, who have them surrounded. The result is an almost-always tense but also fairly humorous standoff. By the middle of the movie, the bank teller hostages have all befriended their captors and want them to get away with everything. So do a number of civilians outside watching everything unfold, because again, this is the anti-establishment post-Vietnam era in which plenty of people wanted to see nothing more than the little guy pulling one over on the authorities. The acting is outstanding, and this is probably the purest and rawest and most charismatic I've ever seen Pacino be. And that, obviously, is saying quite a lot. The two-hour film kind of slows down and switches gears about halfway through, when Pacino's character's true motives for robbing the bank are revealed, and all of a sudden this isn't just a tense thriller but also somewhat of an exploration of a Vietnam veteran's psyche. All in all, it ranks as one of the best 1970s movies I've ever seen, not that that's a very long or illustrious list. (Actually, the list is essentially John Cazale's filmography: The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Shit, that guy went out on top. Like Cobain, except instead of Courtney Love, he was getting it on with twenty-something Meryl Streep.)