Date Watched: January 3, 2011
Source: Netflix
Love it.
Poor, misguided Sonny means well. He’s a smart guy, but he’s got a heart that’s too big to pull off a bank robbery. He has a conscience, and despite his staunch opposition to the treatment of the public by authorities (ATTICA! ATTICA!), he still doesn’t want to hurt anybody. He just wants to make everyone happy and keep his promises. He wants his gay lover Leon to get his sex change operation. He wants his wife, Angela, and their two children to be protected from his other relationship. He wants his partner in the robbery, Sal, to stay alive and out of jail after it’s all over. He wants his mother to stay home and out of harm’s way.
So, Sonny tries to rob a bank in order to pay for the operation. But he’s too soft; basic human needs are too important to him. So the robbery goes wrong. Because of that, Angela finds out about him, his mother shows up in the midst of all this to beg him to stop, and Sal… well…
Even though this is a true story and really happened in Brooklyn back in the early 70s, I won’t give away the ending.
But what I will say is that all the actors are superb. His mother is your typical Brooklyn Italian mother, and his wife is your typical Brooklyn Italian wife. As for Pacino… there’s not much to say except that none of his other movie performances live up to his portrayal of Sonny. That’s not to say anything negative about all his other performances. That’s to say how amazing his work is in this film.
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