January 12th, 2019 | Updated on January 13th, 2023
A man robs a bank to pay for his lover’s operation; it turns into a hostage situation and a media circus.
Based upon a real-life story that happened in the early seventies in which the Chase Manhattan Bank in Gravesend, Brooklyn, was held siege by a bank robber determined to steal enough money for his male lover to undergo a sex change operation. On a hot summer afternoon, the First Savings Bank of Brooklyn is held up by Sonny and Sal, two down-and-out characters. Although the bank manager and female tellers agree not to interfere with the robbery, Sonny finds that there’s actually nothing much to steal, as most of the cash has been picked up for the day.
Sonny then gets an unexpected phone call from Police Captain Moretti, who tells him the place is surrounded by the city’s entire police force. Having few options under the circumstances, Sonny nervously bargains with Moretti, demanding safe escort to the airport and a plane out of the country in return for the bank employees’ safety.
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Movie Review: The New Republic
Three others who worked on Serpico are also involved here: the director Sidney Lumet, the editor Dede Allen, and the star Al Pacino. Their picture, though it runs a bit long, is generally gripping, sometimes fine, more often funny. And eventually unsatisfying.
The screenplay is by Frank Pierson, who wrote Cat Ballou and Cool Hand Luke and worked with Lumet on The Anderson Tapes. I assume that much of the dialogue was loosened up by the actors in performance in moderate improvisation, but Pierson at least provided some good scenarios. The script’s structural defect comes from the fact that it was strapped to the story as it happened.
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Movie Review: TIME Magazine
Superficially, it is a typical story of New York life, maybe even a microcosm of the troubles besetting the city. That is to say. it begins in farce and ends in something akin to tragedy. A trio of amateur gunmen (quickly reduced to a very odd couple) ineptly, comically try to hold up a Brooklyn branch bank. At the finish, one of the befuddled but not entirely evil robbers (beautifully played by John Cazale) is dead, the other busted.
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Movie Review: The Nation
Sonny is very bright, but sadly ill-organized, and for a bank robber hopelessly disinclined to make a nuisance of himself. The crime -conceived as one of those elegant, split-second capers – starts to fall apart at the very beginning and one senses that Sonny would be glad to call the whole thing off (especially when he discovers that there is very little cash in the bank that afternoon). But his somewhat boisterous activity in and around the tellers’ counters has been noticed by people of the neighborhood and by now cops are deployed in solid ranks all up and down the street and on advantageous roofs; the cameras are poised and citizens of Brooklyn by the thousands have gathered to be entertained.
The police have brought to bear enough fire power to repel a military invasion, but cannot use it because Sunny and Sal have detained the bank manager, an elderly guard and eight or ten female tellers, cashiers, typists and, clerks. Negotiations begin: Sonny steps outside from time to time to talk with the officer in charge, demanding at each appearance that the hundreds of guns, pointed at him be put out of sight. This earns him the cheers of the crowd, which he greatly enjoys – and which turn to cruel catcalls when the running broadcast carries the news of his homosexuality.
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