At the close of business on a bristling hot Brooklyn summer day, two bank robbers (Al Pacino and John Cazale) seeking to procure a sex change operation for the former's boyfriend (Chris Sarandan) inadvertently find themselves the center of a hostage situation and media sideshow. Satirically stinging and drawn from a real life incident, Sidney Lumet's realization of Frank Pierson's flavorful, funny script is crisp and empathetic with a brilliant, complicated Pacino performance supported by fine work from Cazale and Charles Durning as a stressed out, genuinely concerned negotiator.
**** out of ****
