DOG DAY AFTERNOON
Directed by SIDNEY LUMET Screenplay by FRANK PIERSON
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.
It is easy to see why this story, based on a real incident, would...