Title: Summer of Sam
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriler
Cast: John Leguizamo, Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino, …
Director: Spike Lee
Release: (1999)
Let me admit one thing up front here: when I rented this, I thought it was that Jake Gyllenhall-Robert Downey Jr. movie about the Zodiac killer, which apparently is about a different killer entirely. You can’t really blame me, Summer of Sam is one of those movies with an artistic cover that doesn’t have any of the stars pictures on it, and I threw it in my Netflix queue quickly enough that I didn’t catch the “John Leguizamo” and “Mira Sorvino” tags at the top of the cover. Hey, with an image condensed to about one inch by half an inch, you can see how that might happen. Plus, I’m slightly less details-oriented than a coked-up rhino. Anyway, that being said, I actually ended up being glad to see this one (though still slightly less glad than a coked-up rhino).
Summer of Sam is a Spike Lee joint about the famous summer of 1977 in New York City. Utilizing a tapestry of well-conceived and delivered characters, Lee recreates the feeling of the slow boiling mania rising throughout the five boroughs as the city struggles to deal with an unrelenting heat wave, the menacing “.44 caliber killer” on the loose, and looks for escape in a resurgent Yankees pennant chase. John Leguizamo stars as Vinny, a hot-shot young hair stylist with a weakness for the ladies (insert your own sarcastic remark here). As a new husband, Vinny is struggling enough trying to reconcile his own appetites with his religious upbringing when a late night tryst leads to a close encounter with the .44 caliber killer himself. If Vinny was close to the edge before, this finally mule-kicks him over the edge and we watch helplessly, like everyone around him, as he becomes convinced that the killer is after him and starts to unravel before our eyes.
Love him or hate him (which are generally the only two camps people fall into) John Leguizamo is the perfect fit for the manic-depressive Bronx barber. I’ve always thought that Leguizamo was kind of like Doug Flutie – a guy too talented to completely ignore, but too uncommon for anyone to figure out how to use right. The closest I’ve ever seen anyone come to using him just right, before this, were as the sociopathic Benny Blanco and the paranoid Spider Mike. Credit Spike Lee for recognizing the fit for him here, where Leguizamo brings a little of the best of both of those characters to the role of Vinny.
But Leguizamo does not stand alone in this film. Mira Sorvino turns in a better-than-solid performance as Vinny’s willfully naïve new wife Dionna, and Adrien Brody turns in an equal-to-solid performance as punk pal Richie. One of the most interesting parts comes from The Sopranos own Michael Imperioli, who actually wrote this movie, and goes way out of his way to break his typecast, Italian tough guy mold in it. In fact, the only noticeably unnatural acting performance comes from Spike Lee himself but I can give him a pass because his scenes are brief and it’s kind of apparent what he’s trying to do in them, in his own ham-fisted sort of way. But, be clear, I only use that term to describe his acting. As a director, here, he deftly weaves together a multifaceted story with an array of skillfully developed characters.
Exactly thirty years later, the infamous summer of ’77 is experiencing a mini-resurgence of interest and reflection. Most notably among seamheads like myself may be ESPN’s mini-series The Bronx is Burning. Summer of Sam is almost a mirror-reflection of The Bronx is Burning in terms of content focus. Whereas the former focuses on a city caught in the grip of the .44-caliber killer and the maddening heat, with anecdotal conversations about the Yankees pennant run sprinkled in liberally for flavoring, the latter does the exact opposite. Depending on which you’re more interested in you may want to just check out one or the other, accordingly. But either way, you still have to hand it to Lee. Having put out Summer of Sam almost a decade ago already, he proves himself way ahead of the curve once again.
Grading
Story: A
Acting: A
Visuals: B
Originality/Innovation: B- (Only by Spike Lee’s standards, as it uses many of the same gimmicks he has come to be known for.)
Enjoyability: B+
Overall: B+
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