The timing for my having just watched Spike Lee's Summer of Sam is coincidental. It chronicles a short timeframe during the late 70's in the United States when an entire region was on edge because of an unknown psychopath. Suffice to say, the recent slew of sniper killings in Virginia and Maryland came to mind on several occasions as I watched. What would it be like to carry on daily living when you know a serial killer in the area may be about to pounce at any moment?
Spike Lee, one of cinema's most gifted filmmakers, offers a unique interpretation. Everything in Summer of Sam is set up to lead us to believe we will be watching a movie about the famous "Son of Sam" killer that terrorized New York City between 1976 and 1977. Instead, Lee introduces several "ordinary" characters and the tumultuous lives they lead. Vinny (John Leguizamo) is a philandering husband who works in a barbershop. His wife Dionna (Mira Sorvino) is determined to fix their subpar physical relationship. Their friends are people like Ritchie (Adrien Brody), a guy who's been influenced by the growing punk movement and has changed his appearance accordingly. His new girl is Ruby (Jennifer Esposito). Meanwhile, a mob boss named Luigi (Ben Gazzara as a gangster yet again) is determined to stop the Son of Sam killer, since the police -- conspicuously unrepresented for most of the film -- seem to be having little luck in nabbing the culprit.
These characters operate on passion and impulse, and a link can be seen between the way they act, and the impact the surrounding conditions make on them, including the infamous power outage across the city, the unsettling onset of punk music among the disco crowd, and the morbid killings of the man who would later be identified as David Berkowitz (Michael Badalucco). The film, heavily focused on dialogue, is all about exposition and shades of gray. The conclusion is taut, but after the characters are fleshed out seems more like a plot device than a natural evolution of events.
Lee doesn't get marks for casting here, though. Naked shots of veteran actresses Patti LuPone and BeBe Neuwirth -- whose acting talents aren't really put to use here -- are borderline gratuitous, unattractive, and not the way to go. Not when you've got women like Sorvino and Esposito soaking up the screen. Badalucco is intriguing as the killer, but the shots of him in his apartment are delibarately filmed à la alterna-rock-video-out-of-focus and are more technically accomplished than genuinely creepy. Still, Summer of Sam is an inviting period piece, replete with splashy music (the Who and ABBA, most notably) and an impressive look. If Lee overachieves in trying to tie things up near the end in an Altman-like technique, he should at least find solace in the fact that the effect is almost a success. For those who remember that year, it's a movie for that particular age, but not quite a movie for the ages.
