Rhapsodies

I was watching a documentary on Network whitch pointed me towards Sydney Lumet’s other classic, Dog Day Afternoon. While looking for an appropriate companion, film, I found out there was a remake of it. So I decided to watch them both and do it all versus new.

Dog Day Afternoon tells us the true story of a bank heist in New York City. Sonny Wortzik’s (Al Pachino) plan was simple. All he had to do was hit the bank right after they received a fresh delivery of cash. Then it would be a quick in and out, 10 minutes tops. 

But then, one of his accomplices flakes out and leaves, then it turns out the delivery was actually a pickup and the bank barely had enough cash on hand for the rest of the day, and somebody called the cops. This leads to a 15–hour hostage situation with no air-conditioner on a dog day afternoon. 

This was an awesome and morally complex film, with great performances from everyone, dealing with issues like Stockholm and Lima syndrome, gender (handled remarkably well for the seventies) and media. Also, it showed how a situation can be blown out of proportion by miscommunication and media. Sonny becomes a cause celebrate not so much because people are supporting him, as they are bored and find it amusing to stick it to the man.

In  Nick Cassavetes‘s John Q the story is updated to the next millennium. Denzel Washington plays John Quincy Archibald whose son is dying from an enlarged heart. Having done everything he can to pay for the operation, he holds up the emergency room in desperation. 

John Q isn’t bad, and Denzel Washington’s performance is up to his usual standards. However, the story goes out of its way to make it clear that John Q is in the right, and ultimately everybody is eventually on his side. All the moral ambiguities of the original movies are cleaned away, leaving nothing but a vanilla criticism of the health industry.