off-stage tensions<\/a>, the drama of the night remained solely on stage.<\/p>\nGuirgis\u2019s adaptation is largely faithful to the film, and in some instances even more faithful to the real-life events than the film was. Though missing some of the profuse shvitzing that made the onscreen standoff feel so excruciating, the icebox of a theater still allows the characters to run hot emotionally (and vocally), demonstrating just how unprepared Sonny and Sal are to pull off a high-stakes crime.<\/p>\n
In this version of the story, Sonny\u2019s motivations remain unclear through the first act. He is the director and the showman of the operation, while Sal is the poorly socialized but sympathetic sidekick whose tendencies waver between the homicidal and suicidal. Bernthal, who wears a white V-neck T-shirt and his emotions on his sleeve, has mastered an acting technique in which the severity of his temper can be measured by the throbbing of his neck muscles. He\u2019s also not afraid to curse like a sailor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Brooklyn, Colleen,\u201d Sonny reminds the head bank teller in the branch (played by Jessica Hecht) after she requests that he tone down his language, \u201cnot Mister Rogers\u2019s Neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is only in the second act, when the media outs the criminal duo as \u201cavowed homosexuals,\u201d that we come to learn about Sonny\u2019s wife, Leon, a transgender woman for whom Sonny is committing this crime. He intends to use the funds not for personal gain, but rather to pay for Leon\u2019s gender-affirming surgery. Moss-Bachrach, who delivers a controlled but emotive performance, has little interest in being called names by the media and defensively blurts, \u201cI ain\u2019t no homosexual, Sonny!\u201d<\/p>\n
Like the film\u2014which was deemed ahead of its time for Al Pacino\u2019s portrayal of a queer man and the inclusion of a transgender character\u2014this adaptation seems interested in the political implications of both queerness and police brutality. The topicality of such issues hasn\u2019t lessened in the intervening five decades, and in one notable instance, mirroring a scene from the movie, Bernthal begins shouting \u201cAttica!\u201d\u2014referencing the 1971 prison uprising in which 43 people died\u2014and much of the 2026 audience joins in.<\/p>\n
After the actors take their bows to an audience on its feet, the celebration moves downtown to a spacious event venue called Second, where guests enjoy glasses of wine and slices of Sicilian-style pizza\u2014an on-theme snack, given Sonny\u2019s demand for pizza in the original film. Dum-Dums lollipops, a signature banking treat, are also plentiful, stored in little baskets at every table.<\/p>\n
One of the windows looks out onto a courtyard, and on the building across the way a video of co-stars Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach is projected. In this silent, grainy short, they appear in period garb, roaming the streets of New York in what is meant to be the 1970s. Even without sound, they ooze the electric chemistry of partners in crime\u2014ones you might even root for in a bank robbery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a sweltering day in August of 1972 when Sonny (Jon Bernthal) and Sal (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) decide to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,108255,5101],"class_list":{"0":"post-368430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-storytypereporting-story","12":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}