Director: Spike Lee
Starring: John Leguizamo, Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Rispoli, Saverio Guerra, Brian Tarantino, Ben Gazarra,
Bebe Neuwirth, Patti LuPone, Spike Lee
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Summer of Sam (1999) - IMDB
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Based on true events, Spike Lee's Summer of Sam is set in New
York, 1977. It was a sweltering summer in which the activities
of a serial killer dubbed Son of Sam by the media saw temperatures
and emotions disappear off the scale as his violent actions with
a .44 rocked the city.
Son of Sam mania is gripping the city and New York's finest are
going all out to catch the killer, aided by the local mafia and
hindered by the neighbourhood vigilantes who, after much thought,
place Jews, blacks and punks at the top of their list of suspects.
Between reading the headlines and watching the news, a small group
of friends in the Italian community of the Bronx spend their time
shimmying to classic disco tracks. Vinny (John Leguizamo) has
a beautiful wife (Mira Sorvino), a neat line in sta-press nylon
and fancy footwork, but he's deeply affected by the killings,
his own marital problems and the strain a serial killer on the
loose is putting on his social life. When his best friend Ritchie
(the striking Adrien Brody) returns to the neighbourhood with
a new-found self-expression - PVC trousers, Union Jack T-shirt,
spiky hair and faux London accent - this bigoted circle declare
punk only a little less unsavoury than murder.
As in Do the Right Thing, central to Lee's action here is the
all-pervasive heat, both sexy and dangerous and, as the temperature
rises, a heady concoction of fear and ignorance tests this group
of friends.
With its white community focus, Summer of Sam is something of
a departure for Lee. But with its immaculate script, faultless
acting and Lee's own cameo performance, it is a typical Spike
Lee film. Plenty of rapid-fire, wise-cracking dialogue and hectic
crowd scenes make it fraught with tension from beginning to end.
Hectic, inventive, gritty, witty, edgy and provocative, no detail
is too small to escape Lee's attention and no issue too large
as the film's perceptive dissection of human nature moves effortlessly
between humour and horror.
Reviewed by Andrea Henry
Reader comments about Summer of Sam
James D'Amico (kimbabigfoot@webtv.net) writes:
...great movie and very cool soundtrack.
Ghost (Email address withheld) writes:
the dog hollering kill,kill,kill said it all about this film. I think very highly of spike lee having made malcolm x, do the right thing and clockers, and so went into this film thinking it would be good.
However it was not the case, i found myself getting boared and found that this film was as unthrilling as a thriller can get. You have a psychopath killer, who takes orders from a dog - Get real.
Palash R. Ghosh (Email address withheld) writes:
'Summer of Sam' is a rotten, dull film. Spike Lee took the real-life events of a NY serial killer, added bits and pieces of 1970s pop culture and came up with this pointless mish-mash that failed to illuminate or entertain on any level. This film confirmed what I had long suspected about Lee -- he's a very amateurish director.
Bob Carroll (recarroll@postmaster.co.uk) writes:
Yeah, I'll concede your points that Summer of Sam is a mish-mash. It is without a doubt the worst film in Spike Lee's otherwise considerable canon. The man directed such "blows to your head"s as Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Get on the Bus and the terrifyling excellent He Got Game. He proved himself to be an absolute master in those films, so we can forgive him the unusual misstep. Look how he controls the frame and paces his narratives, peppering them with appropriate insights throughout any of the aformentioned films and call him an amatuer. Even this pile of cliches has some genuinely decent moments in it. Give me flashes of Lee's genius in a bad film than nothing but plainsailing in an average one, anyday of the week. And that's the triple truth, Ruth!
Shelly (Email address withheld) writes:
Affirmative on the "mish-mash" comments. This film did not have a cohesive plotline in the least, nor did it get by with an artsy scramble of shots, like it looks like it was aiming for. Instead it's scrambled without the aesthetics, and straightforwardly written without the amount of material it needs. There are several instances where it seems like the film just stops dead...Regardless, Adrien Brody as a punk rocker was refreshing (and a good-looker!) - of course, could not salvage a film like this. Pity.
Kim (Email address withheld) writes:
Crap film gr8t soundtrack.
Where can I get these songs?
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