"Summer of Sam" opens and closes with Jimmy Breslin, sufficient warning that what lies ahead is a film which promises not to be as good as it should have been. Director Spike Lee indulges his every whim; grinds all axes, and manages to complete his agenda: a dizzying whirl of gratuitous foul language, ethnic, racial and sexual stereotyping, with mindless violence tossed in as a final lagniappe. The actual series of killings is relegated to repetitive shots of proper pistol grip, shattered auto glass and bloody victims. The "stars" are the summer of 1977, Reggie Jackson, and a collection of misfits, the core of whom want to be vigilantes. We are also treated to Spike Lee as a roving, rambling and somewhat incompetent t.v. reporter, who in one clip, goes to Harlem for "a darker view." The darker view would seem to come from a nasty place where the sun don't shine. Compared to some of the ersatz people in the cast, the Son of Sam character seems particularly benign. We are left with the felling that he did in all the wrong people. Those old enough to remember the "Movietone" and other shorts featuring talking chimps, camels, etc. may find one scene involving a dog as the last straw. Jimmy Breslin, in his second appearance at a DEAD END sign is appropriate. The summer of 1977 and this particular story deserve better. So does the audience.
Review of Summer of Sam
