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They are the dis'n dat, dems-and-dees-enunciating denizens of New York that director John Badham first popularised in Saturday Night Fever, but viewed here with a caustic edge and a jaundiced eye. Rampant with gossipy opinion and steeped in superstition, the Italian-American enclave in the Bronx that these troubled souls occupy is already a powder keg this hot summer. Throw in the factor of a crazed killer on the loose and who knows what shocking psychoses (individually and en masse) will be unleashed. Bold, brash, and unapologetic, Mr. Lee's steamrollering diatribe enjoys the chutzpah of Do The Right Thing and the historical savvy of Malcolm X.
But while the director's latest foray into the valley of politically incorrect moviemaking ventures an artistically valid recounting of David Berkowitz's reign of terror, studying the real-life serial killer of the title is not the film auteur's primary goal. Rather, Spike introduces the Son of Sam to his racially seething neighbourhood as a massive jolt of electroshock therapy, using the frightening wraith to dramatically unravel several of the fictional stereotypes he created with co-authors Victor Colicchio and Michael Imperioli.
Heading the stellar cast in an energy-charged blast of characterisation is John Leguizamo as Vinny, the self-styled disco big shot that agonises over his infidelity to his wife of but two years. Too sexually naive to fathom his seemingly unappeasable libido, the narcissistic hairdresser interprets the Son of Sam hysteria as an evil portent specifically intended to punish him. Several of Vinny's street-corner cronies also subscribe to the theory of a personally involved demon; of course, that most of these egocentric fools imbibe a steady diet of discotheque era drugs helps explain their paranoid view of the homicidal maniac.
The social delirium is skilfully punctuated with scenes of the tortured lunatic (Michael Badalucco) cursing at the dog that torments him, looking at news clippings of his past accomplishments, and venturing out into the night for new conquests. In cars parked on dark streets or in lovers' lanes, blood spurts onto the windshield of ill-fated spoonies and a chubby monster waddles away. We are painfully reminded of this terrible episode in our collective past.
Wily wonder that he is, Mr. Lee inventively satirises the public reaction to this horror, really stepping up the lampoon when depicting how the media handles the ensuing panic. And in a witty ploy, but with a questionable casting choice, he plays John Jeffries (John Johnson?), a black news announcer amalgam that can't pass up the opportunity to ask several African-Americans their reaction to news that the killer is white. Spike now joins fellow Knickerbockers Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen to form a triptych of New York's most celebrated chroniclers.
If racial enmity is the director's primary concern in this kaleidoscopic giambotta of hot topics, sexual confusion is a very close second. And key to exploring the recurring theme of homophobic panic among Summer of Sam's sexually inarticulate crowd is Adrien Brody as Ritchie, a thoughtful, spike-haired musician. The film's oddly salient choice for a moral center, he is Lee's most sympathetic and least Neanderthal-like male.
Dabbling in what will come to be known as punk rock, he also leads a secret life, a notion that the director upgrades to a universal theorem and then applies to several members of the cast. Ritchie, whose homoerotic alter ego supports his music career by secretly performing at a gay strip joint, tries to explain this duality to Vinny when the apparently insecure beauty operator confides in his lifelong friend. But Vinny will have none of it. So there's no sense even going into the tramp/goddess syndrome that dominates his sex life without him knowing it.
Suffering as a result of this stupid machismo is a very pretty Myra Sorvino as his wife, Dionna, the dutiful waitress who works in dad's Italian restaurant. A sweetheart plopped down in the midst of some very explicit scenes peppered with a steady onslaught of vulgarity, this splendidly acted angel gets a tad tarnished and thickens the plot when she and Vinny accidentally land, as a sordid sign of the times, at Plato's Retreat.
Ignorance rules. Even though Ritchie has been one of the guys since childhood, his Bohemian leanings frighten the old crowd; failure to stay within the prescribed lines of parochial behaviour makes him a suspect. You see, the young toughs are keeping a list of Son of Sam possibilities. And so is Luigi (Ben Gazzara), the comically deluded Mafia don unofficially enlisted by the police to help hunt the killer.
Building on his fascination with personal dualism, director Lee also continues his affinity for larger dichotomies like the Yin and Yang differences between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. he was so fond of proffering in most of his earlier works. But while Mr. Lee's black and white simplicity this far along in his career has us clamouring for him to spend more time exploring the grey, the good vs. evil style still works well enough to ferry the plot's multifarious angles. Other familiar style mechanisms held over from his previous filmic outings include grainy footage to suggest a personal acquaintance with the subject and a zoom-in, zoom-out for exclamatory purposes that has now outworn its welcome.
Interestingly, while Lee chooses Italian-Americans for his update on group dynamics, the ruminations are not too unlike the mass hysteria director Arthur Penn depicts in The Chase, where the local bad boy (Robert Redford) escapes from jail and his imminent return stirs all manner of latent fears among the assortment of small-town Babbitts. In that example, the social delineation is between rich and poor. In Spike Lee's mean streets, an intolerant ethos dictates the division.
What's difficult to discern, though, in this, his most controversial and artistically satisfying film to date, is when Mr. Lee the social critic is speaking and when Spike the provocative instigator and scrappy talk show guest is having his say. Evidenced in Summer of Sam, it is apparent that Spike Lee the philosophical filmmaker has his own intriguing dualism to reconcile. It'll be fun to watch him sort it out.
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