- What if a serial killer movie wasn't about the serial killer at all? It's a strange notion, but one that Spike Lee pushes in some interesting and unanticipated directions in Summer of Sam. Although the events of the film all take place in the orbit of the infamous Son of Sam murders that terrorized a small Bronx neighborhood in the unusually hot summer of 1977, the killer himself is conspicuously absent from most of the proceedings. In fact, David Berkowitz (Michael Badalucco) is given about as many lines as his neighbor's dog and almost never appears fully onscreen. Instead, this is primarily a film about an Italian-American community's reaction to the increasingly strange world around them and the hidden dual lives that its own citizens lead.
- Let's start with Vinny (John Leguizamo), who would claim that he is happily married to Dionna (Mira Sorvino). The two of them regularly roll up to the local disco in a stylish convertible and dance the nights away while decked out in the peak of 70's tacky fashion. If pressed, Vinny might confess to sleeping with his boss (Bebe Neuwirth) or his wife's cousin (Lucia Grillo), but the things he does with them aren't anything like the pure, romantic love that Vinny shares with his wife (lights off, naturally). It is while parked in a local lovers' lane with Dionna's cousin that Vinny narrowly misses seeing the Son of Sam kill two people. Now Vinny is worried that some combination of the murderer and/or God may be out to get him for everything he's done.
- Vinny's friend Richie (Adrian Brody) is something of a complicated guy, too. He speaks with a fake British Invasion patois about half the time and has started wearing his hair in the latest punk styles. Vinny and the other local boys (Michael Rispoli, Ken Garito, Al Palagonia) don't understand him, but one imagines they would be even less understanding if they found out that he was working at a gay strip club delivering sexual favors to men on the side. But Richie would insist that he is not himself gay, and how could you even ask that? After all, he is in a relationship with Ruby (Jennifer Esposito), a supportive local girl who paradoxically has slept with everyone in the neighborhood except Richie. For better or worse, Vinny and Richie are two guys with at least four distinct identities.
- So what does any of this have to do with the Son of Sam? Well, in addition to Berkowitz' own dual identity, the murders are a constant source of anxiety for Vinny and an eventual source of mistaken identity for Richie. Nevertheless, the real story seems to be that 1970's New York is a confusing place where your friends will help you out one minute and drag you out into the street the next. Gangsters (including Ben Gazarra) are as comfortable threatening the cops (including Anthony LaPaglia) as helping them to catch a killer. Edgy music clubs and weird discos turn out to be a lot safer than accidentally stumbling into a drug-and-sex orgy. Maybe Reggie Jackson is the killer! In fact, the only completely unambiguous aspect of this film is that nearly every character is loud and obnoxious in a way that has become the stereotype of Italian-American New Yorkers. I'm not sure the result is a great film or a thematically coherent artistic statement, but Lee certainly succeeds in delivering an original work that was not at all what I was expecting.
- Between this and Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 was a banner year for movies in which characters accidentally encounter orgies.
- Spike Lee casts himself as a reporter, Jimmy Breslin as himself, and John Turturro as the voice of the dog.
