DOG DAY AFTERNOON
Sundance, 8:00 p.m. ET
This brilliant, captivating 1972 film is all the more fascinating for being based on a true story – a story so unusual, it likely never would have been concocted by a screenwriter, much less approved by a studio. But here is Al Pacino, playing a guy who stages a bank robbery in Brooklyn in hopes of financing his gay lover’s sex-change operation. But it’s not the motive that’s important here – it’s the tension, and the uncertainty, and the circus-like atmosphere, all of which build to a series of roller-coaster crescendos. John Cazale co-stars, in another of his few, superb film roles. Sidney Lumet directed – flawlessly.