Cruising (1980)

A tribute to homophopic straights.

I saw Crusing in Chicago when it came out, and after its long enough run, the number of crimes against gays in and around the larger ghettos for gays increased substantially.

After I left the theatre with three other people, we got to our car and were chased for blocks in South Chicago by very mean looking people, who at red lights shouted epithets from the film. This happened, and Crusing initiated it.

If it were a work of art,with merit, opening up issues, then the incident I went through might have been understood as insane people doing insane things.

But Crusing is not art,and,it teaches hate and promotes physical violence toward gay people; and it is shocking that Friedkin, after Boys in the Band, could make such an anti gay film, and with such awful acting.

It was and still remains one of the more shameful portraits of gays as predatory, promiscuous, and homocidal.

Avoid this film. July 16, 2008

Great movie - terrible DVD-version...!

"Cruising" is a great, underrated movie, no doubt about that. Gay cult-filmmaker Bruce LaBruce was right when he wrote that no other film depicts the S&M-scene in NYC better than that film...there is just one big problem with this Special-Edition-DVD: William Friedkin couldn't resist tinkering with the visual style of the film. For example, he changed the colours, so that each scene either has a heavy blue-ish or green-ish tone to it. That looks silly and disturbs the realistic atmosphere of the film. Even more disastrously, he added visual effects to Pacino's famous dancing scene - probably to heighten the feeling that Pacino's character is getting crazy. (As if we didn't know). The problem is: those stroboscope-effects look horribly cheap and totally take you out of the scene. The scene was the emotional highlight of the film. Now it is the lowpoint. Friedkin ruined his own film. What a shame. June 7, 2008

Cops in the Band

For all the justifications offered by the filmmakers in the docs and commentaries here there's simply no getting over the fact that this is an expression of straight panic and the vilest bigotry. Neither can you escape the fact that it works as an entertainingly lurid thriller, 70s time capsule as well as a cluelessly campy portrait of the world it pretends to expose. (Watch hapless Al try and figure out the proper "hankie", or throwing out his stack of porn -- one magazine at at a time -- I defy you not to laugh.)

However, the homophobia is so intense that Freidkin sacrifices all storytelling logic. He revels in thinking the killer's identity is ambiguous. It isn't, all the killings have to be commited by the crazed I'm-Here-You're Here dude, even if they are played by differnt actors. He fails to realize that larger case he's making is that gay sex is like a virus spreading violence and death. He seems oblivious to the irony that the real thing would be visited on this community soon enough. (Freidkin does mention on the commentary an actor died soon after filming but doesn't say why.)

I'm not saying the filmakers are bad people, but they're certainly misguided. It would have been nice if the documentary had included a lookback from some of the surviving aggrieved parties as it certainly seems they had some valid points. April 14, 2008

Dark but true

I remember seeing this when it first came out. It was a rather taboo movie because it didn't hold back on the hard core gay leather life that is incorporated in the movie. Pacino did an excellent job of pulling off what the gay leatherman acted and looked like in the 70's and early 80's. The scenes of the clubs are pretty much the way it really was like March 10, 2008

A Fury of Fistings

There's a certain expectation of sensationalism that comes with watching a William Friedkin film - one scene that will have your jaw dropping at the audaciousness of it, and that stays with you long after. Cruising, however, doesn't.
It's a well-crafted work, to be sure, and features great performances from supporting players Karen Allen and Paul Sorvino, but ultimately it leaves one with a sense of dissatisfaction. Friedkin here delves deep into New York's gay underworld of leather bars and kinky sex (he's not representing it as the whole of the lifestyle, just a subculture), occasionally spicing it up with a murder scene.
It's really a showcase for the formidable talents of Al Pacino (before the hysteria of his later work)here as an undercover cop investigating the brutal slayings of men who all seem to share the same lifestyle.
It's not bad Friedkin (like Jade or The Guardian) or brilliant Friedkin (Sorcerer, The French Connection), just very, very, average Friedkin. There's nothing memorable going on here for his fans, but does get a solid performace from Pacino. Not for all tastes. January 7, 2008

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