Lee's premise this time out, one that's supported by people who actually lived through the events in question, is that the seemingly random rampage of David Berkowitz, better known as the Son of Sam serial killer, inflamed tempers and paranoia across all five boroughs of New York City. Set mostly among working-class Italians who eventually turn on one of their own, the film shows how fear and ignorance unite, with communities turning on themselves in times of crisis, looking for scapegoats.

Summer of Sam clearly wants to be a diffuse, Short Cuts-style portrait of the city in crisis, but the whole maelstrom in fact swirls around a young guy named Vinny (John Leguizamo), a well-meaning but impressionable and completely undisciplined hairdresser living in the Bronx. He loves his wife, Dionna (Mira Sorvino), but can't keep himself from cheating on her. He loves his best pal Ritchie (Adrien Brody), who has just returned from England with funny hairstyles and a faux punk attitude, but can't defend him against the venom spewed by the rest of the guys. In short, he's torn between allegiances to his newly outcast best friend and his neighborhood, to his wife and his dick. My main complaint was that, by the end of the film's 136 minutes, I was tired of watching him act like a dumbshit.

Vinny functions as the all-purpose spectator in the arena of social turmoil. Through his eyes, we see a nightlife where disco is king, where young brunettes wear blond wigs en masse (because the killer targets brunettes), and where punk rock is making an incursion on pop blissfulness. All these influences put pressure on his relationship with the patient Dionna, until he unravels completely after a night spent at a coke-fueled orgy.

But Summer of Sam gives us too much Vinny, especially when there are potentially fascinating subplots about, like the police investigation of the murders that has cop Anthony LaPaglia begging for help from gangster Ben Gazzara. The point is made -- even the mob is gripped by fear and disgust during this long hot summer. But the only consequence is a scene where a bunch of goodfellas spoiling for a fight with the killer wind up beating the hell out of an innocent motorist.

Apparently this was the worst of times, and it was the worst of times. While Summer of Sam shows us humanity at its lowest, it neglects to seek out goodness. You'd think stress and tragedy would inspire an occasional act of courage or selflessness, and the movie would have been bolstered immeasurably by just a little tenderness, reminding us what's in danger of being wiped out by our more base impulses.

Instead, it's ugliness from start to finish, punctuated by garish glimpses of the killer himself writhing around in his bedroom, threatening the neighbors and listening to a talking dog. We see him committing the murders, thick red blood flowing across the insides of car windshields, in a series of lurid inserts meant to demonstrate why these times were so frightening. Yes, they're the only real shock scenes he has, they serve as forceful punctuation for the story, and their impact is undeniable. At the same time, they dilute what Summer of Sam really aspires to do, which is to show the effect that Berkowitz's mere presence as a real-life bogeyman had on the rest of the city. This isn't a police procedural, nor was it meant to be. A more honest approach would be to forgo the sick fireworks, effectively silencing the killer's gunshots and amplifying the reverberations.

USA, 1999