It's a better movie that I'd expected, having heard that it wasn't much more than a pointless study of an Italian neighborhood in New York and that it had little to do with the fascinating and horrible Son of Sam case.

Actually, it really IS about relationships among young men and women in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx. We see little of David Berkowitz, the serial murderer. He's in the background, a kind of hovering, invisible presence. But, his relationship to the main plot is encapsulated in an angry exchange between Vinnie (John Leguizamo) and his wife (Dionna). She's angry at his infidelity and recent looniness and he's trying desperately to explain: "Dey think Richie is da Son of Sam. It's drivin' me nuts." And she shouts: "What does THAT have to do with you ****ing Ruby?" That's pretty much it. The boys of the hood sit around in diners wondering who it is who is doing all the killing in their neighborhood. A black out adds to the confusion and hysteria. The good old boys try to make a list of possible suspects among those they happen to know. Let's see. There's Father So-and-So. Remember him? How he used to beat hell out of us? One night they stop the priest and search him and his car, meanwhile asking him to give them their blessing.

But Richie is at the head of the suspect list. He's a freaky looking guy, what with his punk hair do and his working as a stripper and hustler in a gay night club. And there's a lot of his time that he can't account for because he's so busy boffing Vinnie's wife.

Spike Lee and his two Italian-American writers have got a reasonably good handle on life in this kind of neighborhood. They nail down its good points -- if there's a blackout, a neighborhood power broker throws a block party and assigns patrols to keep potentially lethal strangers out -- and they nail down its bad points, as reflected among kids like this, say, in Howard Beach. If it's different, it's bad. The compliance is forced. The wrong haircut can win you a broken face. They get the incidentals too -- the religion that pervades everything and the precepts of which nobody bothers to follow too closely. No apologies for the vices are given. Every other word is the F word and that's okay for the guys, but the women use it all the time as well, and if that's the case, things have evolved a good deal since my youthful experiences with these kinds of folks.

The movie sometimes DOES seem to be going nowhere but it's never boring. Nothing so vivace could possible be dull. There's always somebody talking, often overlapping, even if the utterances are mostly repetitions of what someone else has just said. And there's always movement, even if it's only someone running off at the hands.

Anyway, the neighborhood portrait we get is both good and bad, a tribute to the objectivity of the writers and to Lee, and glory be to God for dappled things. A movie without a Manichaean scheme. And to top it all off, Mira Sorvino carries off the sexiest dance ever put on celluloid, including the one in "Gilda." Jimmy Breslin, the least pretentious columnist in New York, tells us about what happened in framing sequences. He's matter of fact about it all. After all, it's New York and the summer is hot.

It's the Bronx summer of 1977 and the Son of Sam serial killer is on the loose. After a night of disco dancing, hair dresser Vinny (John Leguizamo) and his wife Dionna (Mira Sorvino) encounter the latest victims. Even the mob is enlisted in the search for the killer. Women are changing their hair and people are avoiding public places. Vinny's friend Richie (Adrien Brody) has become a British punk rocker and an outcast in the neighborhood. Vinny's half-sister Ruby (Jennifer Esposito) accepts Richie's changes. The movie also follows David Berkowitz (Michael Badalucco) aka the .44 Caliber Killer. As the pressure mounts, suspicions land on Richie.

Spike Lee is tapping into his inner Scorsese. This is a costume drama movie with good style. It has the terrific atmosphere. However the story feels scattered. The movie really needs more focus. Actually the lead should have been Richie rather than Vinny. Also Berkowitz should be left out since the movie is never about catching him. It's an interesting move by Spike Lee but it's a slight miss.

When "Summer of Sam" came out, the critics panned it, and I never really got why. Maybe it was because of the unctuous, wise guy feeling that the movie elicited. But considering that the summer of 1999 saw drudgery like "The Phantom Menace" and "Notting Hill", there was really no reason to attack this one. The plot of course looks at New York City during the summer of 1977, when David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz was on a killing spree. Everything is seen through the eyes of hairdresser Vinny (John Leguizamo),an undesirable weirdo if there ever was one.

As he often does, Spike Lee - who appears briefly as a reporter - portrays Italian-Americans very negatively (think "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever"). Well, I'm sure that he has a reason for it. Anyway, this movie is an interesting look at a bygone era (and it does make one a little nostalgic). Also starring Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Esposito, Adrien Brody, Michael Badalucco, Mike Starr, and John Turturro.