SPIKE Lee’s “Summer of Sam” is an inter esting failure, an am bitious misfire from the director who, absent Martin Scorsese, one would have thought perfect to tell this New York story. It’s a sprawling, fevered, kitchen-sink movie that’s less than the sum of its often bracing parts. Some moments rank with the best work of Lee’s career, and he gets a galvanizing, career-making performance from John Leguizamo. But the movie is a ragged mess that only rarely connects with its audience or with a point. As ever with Lee (who co-wrote the screenplay with Victor Colicchio and Michael Imperioli), the visuals are far more sophisticated than the storytelling. “Summer of Sam” is not about pudgy sicko David Berkowitz, though the brief scenes with the guy, played by Michael Badalucco, are terrifying. Rather, it concerns the way his killing spree affected a working-class Italian-American neighborhood in The Bronx during the scorching summer of ’77. Leguizamo plays studly hairdresser Vinny, a guido Warren Beatty by day, a leisure-suited John Travolta on the disco floor by night. He’s got a bad conscience about cheating on his wife Dionna (Mira Sorvino), whose cousin he’s shagging in a car one night when Son of Sam passes by. This brush with death scares Vinny straight, or at least into making an honest attempt. Had the screenplay stayed with Vinny’s story, deepened his character and tightened its focus on Sam as the dark side of the era’s hedonism, Lee might have had a great film. But the film drags in too many characters with too little to do. Vinny’s pal Ritchie (a superb Adrien Brody) is a Bronx boy whose imagination is captured by the nascent punk scene in downtown Manhattan. He dances in a sleazy gay cabaret for extra cash, and plays CBGB’s with his girlfriend, slut-‘n-the-hood Ruby (Jennifer Esposito). Meanwhile, the neighborhood lunkheads put their fat heads to work trying to find the killer – who they suspect could be their freaky friend Ritchie. Their pick-up vigilante mob has competition from the real Mob, as a Mafia chief played by Ben Gazzara (who is far better than his cliched role turns out to be) takes control of the area’s streets during the blackout. None of this amounts to much. You find yourself bored, wondering where the various narratives are going, and finally not caring what happens to these lowlife dullards. Is Ritchie really gay? Will Vinny zip his polyester double-knit trousers and save his marriage? Can you stick with this thing for two hours-plus? “Summer of Sam’s” real pleasures are in its textures: the grimy atmosphere of the city heat- stroking its way through summer, woozy from promiscuous sex, drugs, sweat, riots, murder and the Yanks. There’s an intense, jagged montage set to The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” that distills the spirit of fear, paranoia and chaos Lee fails to bring to the rest of the film. The movie’s most indelible moment comes during an orgy at Plato’s Retreat: Dionna’s bored, sad face juxtaposed with Vinny’s tortured but exalted visage tells us everything we need to know about this crashing-and-burning couple – and a lot about that moment in history, too. The raunchy dialogue is wearing on the ears after a while, and though the movie does not center on Berkowitz, his abrupt appearances outside the cars of his victims are shockingly violent. Another scene, in which Lee uses computer technology to give the dog Berkowitz believed was telling him to kill a voice and mouth movements like the Taco Bell chihuahua, is just awful.
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SUMMER OF SAM
Starring John Leguizamo, Adrien Brody. Directed by Spike Lee. Running time: 138 minutes. Rating: R. At Loews Village, Criterion, Lincoln Square, others.
