Review – Summer of Sam

Wow. This is easily the best Spike Lee has done since Do the Right Thing, and for my tastes his best ever. That he manages to pull off a rock-out sequence to “Baba O’Riley” alone makes the film worth watching, and yet it offers so much more. Lee has returned to the streets of New York to tell the tale of neighborhood life in the shadow of David Berkowitz’s killing spree in the summer of 1977. The Son of Sam gets a little screen time in disjointed scenes that are as chilling as they are brief; this is the first genuinely frightening screen psychopath I’ve seen since Cruising. But the main plot of the film follows a couple of young men struggling with their own personal demons. The tale retains the feel of unflinching honesty throughout, never stooping to smarmy bathos despite the obvious temptation to do so at several points. Stir in a helping of baseball references and you’ve got a production that’s darn near perfect. Buy the tape