Based on a True Story

This is a great documentary! It won an award for best documentary at the Int Seattle Film Festival. They reconstruct the robbery in Brooklyn and are confronted with a robber who is still a crazy madman. It's really stupid that this guy from Australia didn't notice the brilliant parallel between the negotiations over a phone line. Like the FBI negotiated over phone with this crazy robber, the director was forced to do the same 30 years later. The robber wants a lot of money for cooperation and he desperately wants to control the story in the way the film should be made. It feels like he is keeping hostage again (but this time his side of the story). Dog Day Afternoon made him a hero. Based on a True Story reveals the true character of the robber named john Wojtowicz. There is great archival footage of the real robbery, Ex hostages, the FBI agent who shot Sal, the Robbers ex wife, Sydney Lumet and scriptwriter Frank Pierson. It's a pity they didn't get Al Pacino. I think it's a cool film and it was very revealing for me!

The IMDb database gives a runtime for this film in the alternative as either 24 or 75 minutes. I saw (most of) the 75 minute version. The premise of the film - investigating the 'real life' events underlying the Al Pacino film "Dog Day Afternoon" - is sound. The problem is that large chunks of the film are devoted to disagreements about money between the filmmakers and the main protagonist (the man behind the robbery). The filmmakers try to cover up the fact that during shooting they failed to secure the adequate co-operation of the protagonist by half-heartedly turning the documentary into an exploration of the nature of documentary truth, but this is clearly a cover for a failed documentary and is superficial and unconvincing. The more honest approach when it became clear the key guy would not co-operate would have been to abandon the project, return any unused funding (yes i know this is unlikely) and find a new documentary subject.

Again, this is what I like about Documentaries. Although I never had seen Dog Day Afternoon, I knew it starred Al Pacino, and was about some sort of bank robbery. What I never knew was it was, yes, based on a true story. Funny how it took this long for a documentary about the participants in the robbery and a reflection from the lead characters. Problem is, John Wojtowicz, the main culprit, the guy Al Pacino played in 'Afternoon', isn't too willing to appear without conditions and money money money. Luckily, Walter Stokman, the director, has lots of willing subjects to talk about the robbery including tellers that were in the bank, robbery including tellers that were in the bank, cops that were on the scene, and even the screenwriter of the movie, and Sidney Lumet, who directed it (who rather amusingly tries to shield the fact he's apparently had a stroke). And amusingly, Stokman also uses time to document his struggles to get Wojtowicz on Camera (he corner Wojtowicz during a special screening of Dog Day with the screenwriter). Interestingly, Al Pacino isn't interviewed at all, I wonder why.

Stokman has created a very good documentary, the big problem I have is that the film is way way WAY too grainy. Like he shot it on, I don't know, a pixelvision, and blew it to 35mm. What was with the grain?