A SPRAWLING, uneven, lengthy and massively entertaining scuzz-cruise through Seventies New York, Summer Of Sam might well be Spike Lee's most broadly accessible film yet, and if it sinks without trace (as I suspect it might) it will be little short of a tragedy.

The first Lee film ever to get by without any significant black characters (for what it's worth), Sam is set in the Bronx during the baking-hot summer of 1977, while a depraved serial-killer named David Berkovitz (he actually existed) is murdering couples in their cars with the aid of a .44 pistol.

The film isn't a serial-killer yarn as such, however - it's an illustration of the psychosis and festering paranoia that gripped the neighbourhood while the killer was still at large, and it doubles as a pleasant nostalgia trip, capturing NY at the point where disco-funk vapidity gave way to punk pretension.

It's aided by an excellent cast in uniformly excellent form - John Leguizamo plays an insatiably promiscuous hairdresser named Vinny, who comes close to tasting the murderer's bullet during one of his many extra-marital romps and progressively loses the plot as the film progresses, while his sweet, trusting wife (Mira Sorvino) invents new methods of self-deception throughout.

Meanwhile, his pal Richie (Brody) gets smitten by the punk bug, and takes to wearing a Union Jack T-shirt with a dog-collar while spouting his every word in a woefully misbegotten London accent, to the immense amusement of his lifelong homies. He forms a band, financing their gigs by dancing in seedy gay clubs, and changes radically as the film wears on, to the point where his pals begin to suspect he might even be the killer.

Sam is not the most coherently-structured or tightly-scripted film you'll ever see, but it's as entertaining as you could dare to hope, with ruminations on everything from baseball to pornography along the way, intriguing glimpses of CBGB's and Studio 54, and a sweltering Big Apple atmosphere that practically transports you to the time and place. Give it a chance.

RATING: HHHH