Genre Guesstimation – Summer of Sam (1999)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by me and we will be reviewing our favorite New York Films That Take Place Prior to 9/11…

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Sep by sending them to pre9-11NYCDarren@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of New York Films That Take Place Prior to 9/11…

“Oh, come on, fuhgeddaboudit, that’s all my father needs to see. Then we’ll all get beatings.” – Dionna

Number of Times Seen – 1 (6 Sep 2022)

Brief Synopsis – During the summer of 1977, a group of friends begin to lose trust and faith in one another during the heat wave while a dangerous serial killer was on the prowl.

My Take on it – This is a film that I had heard of, yet never had the opportunity to see.

The overall premise is quite intriguing, but even with a writer and director like Spike Lee, things just aren’t presented in a more competent way.

The characters aren’t developed well enough and this causes much confusion between many of them since most of them don’t stand out at all.

The film lacks a real focal point and is all over the place throughout which also makes it even harder to get a full grasp of what Lee is trying to say here.

It feels as if this has too many vignettes and story threads which feel more disconnected than connected as it should be.

The story has so much more potential than is realized here and that’s quite a shame since it misses a superb opportunity here to tell something quite profound, yet they fumble it along the way.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – In the script, Richie was the lead character and Vinny was a secondary character. But Spike Lee enjoyed John Leguizamo’s improvising so much that he ended up giving him more screen time. The scene where Vinny pours coffee on Gloria was one of many improvisations by Leguizamo. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not at all. The story is a mess and forgets to find a focal point that could be interesting

Rating – Razzie Worthy (4/10)