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Review by Susan Granger
3 stars out of 4
The perennial question facing film-makers has always been:
Should movies try to influence their audience - using morality
stories, fables, fantasies, etc. - or should movies simply, often
boldly, reflect the society of their time? Spike Lee chooses the
latter. There's no doubt that the anger and violence, stupidity and
intolerance that he depicts are real. But do you really want to spend
a sluggish two hours with these unpleasant, unsavory characters? Set
in the sweltering summer of '77, when the Son of Sam psychopath, David
Berkowitz, went on his bloody killing spree in the Bronx, the story
revolves around two couples who are long-time friends. Mira Sorvino
and John Leguizamo are into disco, while Jennifer Esposito and Adrien
Brody are punk rockers. Each has his/her own sexually explicit
problems (mostly drug-connected) but, collectively, they're spooked as
they're swept into the gruesome details of Berkowitz's indiscriminate
slaughter. And Ben Gazzara scores as the local crime kingpin who is
determined to protect his neighborhood. Problem is: there's no bond
between the moronic characters and the audience. Is it the
one-dimensional roles in the episodic screenplay by Victor Colicchio,
Michael Imperioli, and Spike Lee? Perhaps. But, as a director, Lee
seems out of his element with these idiosyncratic Italian-Bronx
characters and keeps us utterly detached. And, as an actor, Lee
delivers a wretched performance as a TV newscaster overemphasizing
each line. While this film is visually stylish and vigorous with
pertinent historical imagery, it is, as Jimmy Breslin says, just one
of eight million stories of the naked city - and quite a racist one at
that. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Summer of Sam" is a
bleak, brutal, repellent 3. Don't say you weren't warned.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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out of 4
