A brief reprise of our film critic's one-star (out of four) review of "Summer of Sam" (Rated R, 137 minutes):

"Summer of Sam" is a lurid, jangly mess of a movie, directed by Spike Lee with his usual nerve and visual moxie but without any coherent emotional center. Lee takes the Son of Sam killings to draw a broader portrait of the paranoid summer of 1977. John Leguizamo plays an Italian-American Bronx denizen with sexual problems, and Adrien Brody plays his friend, a would-be punk rocker who worships the Who and strips in gay clubs.

Raunchy, crude, with desultory bouts of brutal violence, "Summer of Sam" will disappoint viewers looking for another "Do the Right Thing"; indeed, this thing is very wrong.

Pub Date: 7/13/99