BEFORE: Supposedly Adrien Brody was somewhere in "Natural Born Killers", playing a cameraman, though according to the IMDB his role was uncredited. A few years later, he got a much bigger role in this film, and got the screen credit for it as well.
THE PLOT: Spike Lee's take on the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American South Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.
AFTER: This is a unique way of telling the story of a serial killer, by NOT telling the story directly. Little was known about the Son of Sam while he was committing his murders, so in a way it makes sense to tell the story of the everyday citizens of New York City, and they way that they changed their activities with a psycho killer (Qu'est ce que c'est?) on the loose. Once someone realized that all of the female victims had shoulder-length brown hair, for example, women supposedly started changing their hair color or wearing blonde wigs.
The question then becomes, in the absence of a narrative about the killer, does what replaces it measure up or become more interesting? I suppose that's a debatable point - a cheating husband questions his behavior because it puts him at risk. An Italian kid from the neighborhood starts playing in a band and dressing all punk, even changing his accent. A cop visits a mobster and asks for his help in tracking down the mysterious killer. There's more, but you get the idea, it's a lot of slice-of-life stuff.
For me it didn't really come together to form a coherent whole, big parts of the film feel like they were improvised, since the characters tend to say the same things again and again, or don't answer each other's questions directly. Sure, the reactions may be more sincere, but they also feel evasive and half-thought out.
Plus, the most interesting thing about the Son of Sam was not how people reacted to him, now, was it? If the guy really was driven crazy by the barking of his neighbor's dog, who he believed to be a hound from hell, literally, then that's your movie. Too bad the details are so sketchy when you get inside the mind of a crazy gunman.
I watched an edited version of this film, one that ran on the Fox Movies Channel recently to promote the new serial-killer show "The Following". The IMDB lists the running time as 142 minutes, but the version I watched was 2 hours and included commercial breaks, and replacements for the curse words. I've tried very hard not to watch movies with ads or other edits into my project - so with that I have to remove Fox Movies from my line-up, along with IFC and (this hurts) the Sundance Channel. All three were commercial-free at some point, but are no longer - so I guess times are tough, but "sayonara". If you can't concentrate on showing movies uncut, you're as dead to me as AMC.
Also starring John Leguizamo (last seen in "Casualties of War"), Mira Sorvino (last seen in "The Final Cut"), Jennifer Esposito, Michael Rispoli, Anthony Lapaglia (last heard in "Happy Feet Two"), Mike Starr (last seen in "Billy Bathgate"), Patti Lupone, Ben Gazzara (last seen in "Anatomy of a Murder"), Michael Imperioli (last seen in "The Lovely Bones"), Bebe Neuwirth, Michael Badalucco, Spike Lee (last seen in "Mo' Better Blues"), with cameos from Jimmy Breslin, and the voice of John Turturro.
RATING: 4 out of 10 slashed tires
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