
            In the Western Pennsylvania foundry town of Clairton, during the late 1960s, Russian-American steel workers Michael (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage), Nick (Christopher Walken), Stanley (John Cazale), John (George Dzundza), and Axel (Chuck Aspegren) are preparing for two rites of passage: the marriage of one and military service for three of them.They work together, hang out in a local bar and enjoy weekends deer hunting. But their placid life is soon to be changed after three enlist in the airborne infantry and go to Vietnam. Before they go, Steven marries the pregnant Angela, with whom he has not had sex, and their wedding party is also the men's farewell party. The hall is decorated with the boy's high school pictures and lots of American flags.Nick's girlfriend, Linda, makes breakfast for her father while wearing a bridesmaid's dress. Her father, an abusive and hallucinating alcoholic, is upstairs and alone, having an alcoholic attack and has trashed his room. Linda brings him his breakfast and he hits her a couple of times leaving a bruise on her face. She leaves for the wedding and takes her belongings to Nick's where she asks to stay for a while. Mike is upset and walks out when Linda shows up.At the Russian wedding reception, there is lots of drinking, ethnic dancing and wedding rituals. This is a very long scene and sets up the relationships and foreshadows some of what is to come. Mike spends a lot of the time at the bar drinking and watching Linda from afar. During the final ceremony of drinking from a dual wine cup, the convention is the couple will have a good life if they don't spill any wine but the camera catches some drips on the bride's dress. Nick proposes to Linda after she catches the bouquet and she accepts. The bride and groom leave the party in Mike's decorated Cadillac and Mike chases after them stripping himself naked as he runs, winding up with Nick in a basketball court. Nick makes Mike promise to bring him back to Clairton if something happens.The morning after, with the car still decorated from the wedding, the men drive into the mountains to go deer hunting. Mike takes hunting very seriously, having expressed his one shot theory to Nick previously, and gives Stan a cold shoulder when Stan wants to borrow socks and then can't find his hunting boots. He asks Mike for his extra pair and Mike refuses, having grown tired of Stan's lack of preparedness on previous trips. Frustrated, Stan pulls out a small handgun he carries and Nick breaks up the confrontation. The next morning, Mike and Nick go out into the woods and hunt (to Rachmaninoff's dramatic piece "Praise the Name of the Lord"). Mike has told Nick he is the only one of the group he will hunt with, having no respect for the others. Mike stalks and shoots a deer, bringing it down in a single shot.The troupe returns to Clairton and they go straight to John's bar. John plays a somber piece on the piano and the men sit mostly silent, contemplating their last night together as a group.The story shifts to a mountainous region of Vietnam where a small village is a battleground. Michael is there, lying unconscious among some dead. A North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldier walks into the village. He finds a small group of survivors, women and children, hiding in a hidden bunker. He casually arms a grenade, tosses it in and walks off as it explodes. Moments later he sees a woman, badly injured, carrying a baby. The soldier mercilessly shoots her. Mike springs up and blasts the soldier with a flamethrower. As Mike walks around shooting any surviving NVA soldiers, a unit of helicopters arrive and drop troops, among them are Nick and Steve. Mike, with a thousand-yard stare, doesn't seem to recognize them at first when incoming mortar shells from the NVA begin to hit the fields around the village. In the distance,a string of NVA are approaching.The three are captured and held prisoner in a crude riverside camp along with other US Army and ARVN prisoners. For entertainment, the guards force their prisoners to play Russian roulette and gamble on the outcome. Steven is suffering a mental breakdown and is chosen first. He pulls the trigger but the gun is aimed above his head, grazing him with the bullet. Though their captors laugh, he is punished by incarceration to a rat-infested partially submerged cage. Believing that the experience has broken Steven, Mike considers abandoning him in his planned escape attempt. Nick angrily rejects Mike's idea.Mike, convinces the guards to let him go head-to-head with Nick in the next round, after devising a plan to escape that requires three bullets in the pistol and shares his plan with Nick. Mike tells him to go after the closest gun when Mike makes his move. Mike successfully convinces their captors use three bullets in the cylinder. Mike raises the gun to his head and at the last minute pushes the rifles pointed at him aside while turning the gun on his captors. Mike and Nick grab their captors' AK-47s and kill them all before freeing Steve.The three escape the camp by floating downriver on a tree. An American helicopter patrolling the river attempts to rescue them, but only Nick is able to get inside and the other two hang from the landing gear. The weakened Steven falls into the river. Mike jumps in after him, and helps him to the riverbank. Steven yells that he can't feel or move his legs. Mike carries him on his back to a steam of refugees and convinces the South Vietnamese troops to take Steve on their jeep while he joins the bands of refugees fleeing the conflict.The mentally-devastated Nick recuperates in a military hospital in Saigon, where the psychologist concludes he is not fit to remain there. After he's released, he tries to call Linda in Clairton but hangs up before the call is connected. He wanders aimlessly in the red light district. Nick encounters Julién Grinda (Pierre Segui), a champagne-drinking Frenchman outside a gambling den where men play Russian roulette for money. Grinda entices Nick to go in. Unbeknownst to Nick, Mike is in the crowd, as a spectator. Nick interrupts the match, puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger and then leaves in a hurry with the Frenchman. Mike follows but can't catch them as they drive away and Nick throws the money the Frenchman offers him into the street.Returning to Clairton Mike avoids a welcome celebration and shows up to meet Linda alone. Nick is still missing. Mike finds out that Steve is alive and has returned from Vietnam and visits Angela, Steve's wife, to find out where he is. She is stuck in bed and non-communicative but writes down a number for him. It is the number for Steven's veteran's rehabilitation clinic.Michael reunites with Steven, who has lost both his legs and the use of an arm plus psychological damage. Steven reveals that someone in Saigon has been mailing large amounts of cash and carved elephants to him. Mike suspects the money is from Nick, who may still be alive and earning the money from Russian roulette gambling. Mike takes Steven home over Steven's protests.The boys go hunting and Mike hunts alone but can't go through with shooting the deer. He has another confrontation with Stan in the hunting cabin after Stan gets mad and aims his pistol at one of them. Mike takes his pistol and throws it away.Mike goes back to Saigon just before its fall in 1975 to find Nick. With the help of the Grinda, he finds Nick in a crowded roulette club, but Nick has no recollection of Mike or his home in Pennsylvania. Make tries to buy Nick from the gamblers. Mike and Nick end up pitted against each other in an attempt on Mike' part to help Nick remember who he is. Mike's attempts to jog his memory and persuade him to come home are unsuccessful and he notices track marks on Nick's arm, suggesting his minders are forcing him to use heroin to turn him into a mindless roulette player. Mike and Nick go through a few rounds of roulette until Nick raises the gun to his head and kills himself.The film ends with Nick's funeral back in America and his friends' response to it. Everyone's there, and even Angela and Steven seem to be on the mend. At the wake in the bar they all mournfully sing "God bless America", and toast Nick."CAVATINA" by Stanley Myers is played (on guitar by John Williams) as the credits roll.
    

The Deer Hunter


            Based upon a real-life story that happened in the early seventies in which the Chase Manhattan Bank in Flatbush, Brooklyn, was held siege by a gay bank robber determined to steal enough money for his male lover to undergo a sex change operation. On a hot summer afternoon, the First Savings Bank of Brooklyn is held up by Sonny Wortzik and Sal two down-and-out characters. Although the bank manager and female tellers agree not to interfere with the robbery, Sonny finds that there's actually nothing much to steal, as most of the cash has been picked up for the day. Sonny then gets an unexpected phone call from Police Captain Eugene Moretti, who tells him the place is surrounded by the city's entire police force. Having few options under the circumstances, Sonny nervously bargains with Moretti, demanding safe escort to the airport and a plane out of the country in return for the bank employees' safety. Written by alfiehitchie First-time crook Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) and his friend Sal (John Cazale) rob a Brooklyn bank to fund Sonny's boyfriend's sex change operation, only to discover that the bank has very little money. Unsure what to do, the two robbers camp out in the bank, holding all the workers hostage. The police are alerted that there is a robbery in progress. Detective Eugene Moretti (Charles Durning) and numerous officers set up a siege around the bank. When Moretti calls the bank to tell the lead robber, Sonny, that the police have arrived, Sonny warns that he and his armed accomplice, Sal, have hostages and will kill them if anyone tries to come into the bank. Detective Moretti acts as hostage negotiator, while FBI Agent Sheldon (James Broderick) monitors his actions. Howard (John Marriott), the security guard, has an asthma attack, so Sonny releases him when Moretti asks for a hostage as a sign of good faith. Moretti convinces Sonny to step outside the bank to see how aggressive the police forces are. After a moment, Sonny starts his now-famous "ATTICA!" chant, and the civilian crowd starts cheering for Sonny.After realizing they cannot make a simple getaway, Sonny demands transportation: a jet to take them out of the country. When a tactical team approaches the back door, he fires a shot to warn them off. Moretti tries to persuade Sonny that those police were a separate unit that he was not controlling. Later, Sonny incites the crowd by throwing money over the police barricades. Some overrun the barricade and a few are arrested. When Sonny's wife Leon Schermer (a transwoman) (Chris Sarandon) arrives, she reveals that Sonny is robbing the bank to pay for Leon's sex reassignment surgery and that Sonny also has a legal wife, Angie, and children. Leon refuses to speak with Sonny, even over the telephone.As night sets in, the lights in the bank all shut off. Sonny goes outside again and discovers that Agent Sheldon has taken command of the scene. He refuses to give Sonny any more favors, but when hostage Mulvaney (Sully Boyar) goes into a diabetic shock, Agent Sheldon lets a doctor through. While the doctor is inside the bank, Sheldon convinces Leon to talk to Sonny on the phone. The two have a lengthy conversation that reveals Leon had attempted suicide to "get away from" Sonny. She had been hospitalized at the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital until the police brought her to the scene. Leon turns down Sonny's offer to join him and Sal, to wherever they take the plane. Sonny tells police listening to the phone call that Leon had nothing to do with the robbery attempt.After the phone call, the doctor asks Sonny to let Mulvaney leave and Sonny agrees. Mulvaney refuses, instead insisting he remain with his employees. The FBI calls Sonny out of the bank again. They have brought his mother to the scene. She unsuccessfully tries to persuade him to give himself up and Agent Sheldon signals that a limousine will arrive in ten minutes to take them to a waiting jet. Once back inside the bank, Sonny writes out his will, leaving money from his life insurance to Leon for her sex change and to his wife Angie.When the limousine arrives, Sonny checks it for any hidden weapons or booby traps. When he decides the car is satisfactory, he settles on Agent Murphy to drive Sal, the remaining hostages and him to Kennedy Airport. Sonny sits in the front next to Murphy while Sal sits behind them. Murphy repeatedly asks Sal to point his gun at the roof so Sal won't accidentally shoot him. As they wait on the airport tarmac for the plane to taxi into position, Agent Sheldon forces Sonny's weapon onto the dashboard, creating a distraction which allows Murphy to pull a pistol hidden in his armrest and shoot Sal in the head. Sonny is immediately arrested and the hostages are all escorted to the terminal. The film ends with Sonny watching Sal's body being taken from the car on a stretcher.
    

Dog Day Afternoon


            Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a private surveillance expert in San Francisco, has been hired by the Director to follow and record the actions of his wife, Ann (Cindy Williams), and her lover, Marc (Frederic Forrest). Using three separate microphones, Caul and his associates follow the couple around a park. Later, he pieces together a conversation that clearly indicates the two are in a relationship and that they fear being found out by the Director.Caul is a secretive, almost paranoid individual. He alienates his assistant, Stan (John Cazale), because he won't teach him more about audio surveillance, and his girlfriend, Amy (Teri Garr), because he won't share with her details about his career or personal life. He also refuses to hand over the tapes of Ann and Marc to the Director's assistant, Martin (Harrison Ford). The Director had specified that the tapes were to be turned over only to him. Martin protests but Caul keeps the tapes.Caul becomes increasingly concerned that, were he to turn the tapes over to the Director, that some harm would come to Ann and Marc. On the tapes, Marc can be heard to say "He'd kill us if he had the chance." When he worked on the East Coast, Caul had participated in a surveillance that led to the deaths of two persons. He worries that this might happen again, and goes to church to confess his sins.After Amy breaks off their relationship, Caul attends a surveillance convention. Martin also attends, and Caul confronts him and orders Martin to stop following him. He learns that Stan has gone to work for Moran (Alan Garfield), a Detroit-based surveillance expert looking to expand to the West Coast. Moran demonstrates to convention goers a new remote audio system that turns any telephone into a live microphone. Although Caul persuades Stan not to work for Moran after the convention is over, Moran is effusive in his praise for Caul. Lonely and enjoying the positive attention, Caul lets his guard down and takes Moran, Stan and several others back to his workroom for a post-convention party. Among the partygoers is Meredith (Elizabeth McRae), a showgirl who worked at Moran's convention booth. Meredith openly flirts with Caul and in a private moment, Caul opens up to her about his troubles with Amy. This conversation is recorded by Moran, who had earlier planted a bug on Caul. Caul is outraged and kicks everybody out. Meredith stays, helps Caul into bed, undresses herself and sleeps with him. Caul has a dream in which he pursues Ann through the fog, telling her about how he nearly died as a child. In this dream, he warns Ann that the Director plans to kill her. "I'm not afraid of death," he tells her as she disappears into the mist, "but I am afraid of murder."When Caul awakens in the morning, he discovers both Meredith and the tapes are gone. Frustrated and angry, he returns home and tries to call the Director. Caul has lied to many people that he doesn't have a home telephone and is surprised when Martin calls him back at home. Martin tells him that he took the tapes and delivered them to the Director. Caul should come to the office to pick up his fee ($15,000). Caul does as asked, and finds the seething Director (Robert Duvall) listening to the conversation. The Director curtly dismisses Caul after paying him.Disturbed, Caul goes to the hotel that Ann and Marc mentioned as meeting place in their conversation. He rents an adjoining room and inserts a microphone through the wall to listen to the conversation. He hears shouting. Rushing to the balcony, he sees bloody hand prints on the glass partition. Appalled and frightened, he collapses in his own room. Upon reviving, he breaks into the room Marc and Ann had rented. The room seems orderly, but the toilet is running. He gives it a flush and blood wells out.Caul goes to see the Director but security blocks his way. On the street, he is surprised to see Ann sitting in an idling car. A newspaper headline informs him that the Director has been killed in a car accident. Ann now controls the Director's company. Later, as Ann, Marc and Martin try to escape reporters asking them about an inquiry into the Director's death, they notice Caul watching them. Caul realizes that the bloody hand he saw in the hotel was the Director's; Marc's statement that the Director would kill them if he had the chance was a rationalization of their decision to kill him.Back in his apartment, Caul sits alone, playing his saxophone to his favorite jazz records. His phone rings. When he answers, no one is there. He hangs up and resumes playing. It rings again; this time, Martin tells him that Ann and Marc know he has deduced what happened, and that they will be listening to him. Martin then plays back a recording of Caul's saxophone playing. Completely consumed by paranoia and forgetful of Moran's demonstration at the convention, Caul demolishes his apartment looking for the bug. Unable to find it, he resumes playing his saxophone.
    

John Cazale

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