Cruising (1980)
Re-evaluated: Cruising (1980)
I never considered reviewing an erotic thriller on Revaluated, less a film that I've never heard about before discovering it in any other media. However, with home media distributor Arrow Video releasing many cult films on excellent blu-ray releases, I may have found a plethora of movies to cover from their massive library of films. With Arrow Video providing plenty of great material to cover for this series, I decided to look at the 1980 Al Pacino erotic thriller Cruising.
Cruising was directed by William Friedkin, one of the figures of the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s, an era of filmmaking where young directors had complete creative over their films. Back then, film studios never intervened in the production, nor did they dictate mandates the director had to conform with to meet expectations. Friedkin had previously directed The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), both films winning him acclaim from critics and a slew of Academy Awards. He also directed Sorcerer (1977), which was unfortunately released around the same time as Star Wars (1977), which became one of the biggest films ever, but is nevertheless considered a classic.
William Friedkin's next project was Cruising, based on the 1970 novel of the same name by Gerald Walker. It follows a police detective named John Lynch, who goes undercover to catch a serial killer who preys on gay men in New York City's gay scene. The title is a play on words, which could mean gay men cruising for sex or police officers going on patrol. The film took several liberties with the novel, most notably changing the name of the main character to Steve Burns, giving him a girlfriend, with who he has an active sexual relationship, and moving the setting to the world of S&M and leather gay bars in Greenwich Village, New York.
The film's production and shooting schedule was consistently plagued by protests from gay rights activists, who thought that the film negatively portrayed them. During production, protestors did everything to sabotage the filming, blasting loud music to disrupt the filming and blowing whistles loudly. The damage was so bad, the studio had to overdub the entire film in post-production. Once the film was completed, it was given an X rating, usually given to films that featured graphic sexual content. (Largely due to the porn industry adopting the rating because it wasn't trademarked by the MPAA, it was eventually retired and replaced with NC-17 in 1990). Since most film theaters refused to show X-rated films and a film getting a rating like this usually spelled financial suicide for any Hollywood production, director William Friedkin cut 40 minutes from the film, which had a rumored runtime of 140 minutes, most of it being hardcore homosexual content.
The $4.97 Golden Raspberry Award
The film was released on February 15, 1980, to largely negative reviews from critics and to the ire of LGBT activists, who publicly protested the film's release, even though the film had support from the Leather/S&M community of NYC, who even appeared as extras in various scenes, most of them taking place in the clubs. At the 1st Golden Raspberry Awards, the film was nominated for three Razzie Awards, Worst Picture (United Artists), Worst Director (William Friedkin), and Worst Actor (Al Pacino). The awards went to Can't Stop the Music (Associated Film Distribution), Xanadu (Robert Greenwald), and Can't Stop the Music (written by Alan Carr and Bronté Woodard) respectively.
Over the years, the film's reputation has improved but ultimately garnered a mixed reception. It currently holds a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 43 on Metacritic, but a positive audience score on IMDb (6.5/10) and Letterboxd (3.5 out of 5 stars). The critical consensus reads:
"Cruising glides along confidently thanks to filmmaking craft and Al Pacino's committed performance, but this hot-button thriller struggles to engage its subject matter sensitively or justify its brutality."
After having seen Cruising for myself, through the blu-ray release brought to you by Arrow Video, I can determine that it isn't a bad film by any means. I felt the concerns the LGBT activists had with this movie were unwarranted, as the film didn't negatively portray them, but I have to admit that a premise like this would not fly today with the general public, especially with the Twitter mob itself. I thought the film didn't deserve a Worst Picture nomination, less a Worst Director nomination for William Friedkin, but there could be a case made for Worst Screenplay. Before we discuss that subject, I want to talk about the soundtrack of this movie.
Cruising is the only film soundtrack work done by legendary hardcore punk band The Germs. The band recorded about six songs for the film, but only one was used in the final product ("Lion's Share"). Most of the film's soundtrack was never issued on any form of media until Waxwork Records unearthed the original masters and released the entire soundtrack on a 3 LP release. The complete soundtrack includes the works of Willy DeVille, The Germs, Mutiny, The Cripples, Barre Phillips, Rough Trade, and Jack Nitzsche, previously contributing to the score of The Exorcist.
Cruising's script is weak, not taking full advantage of its controversial subject matter and fails to give us a killer with a well-founded motivation. Throughout the film, we see the killer's modus operandi play out: he meets his victim at the West Village bars, takes them someplace to perform sexual acts on the victim before stabbing them to death. Naturally, this would be a disturbing crime in itself, but the impact of the brutality onscreen becomes undone by the killer's debilitated motivation. His motive behind the killings is revealed to be his deceased father, who disapproved of his homosexuality, which isn't properly explored any further in this film. You'd assume that we'd get a decent backstory into the killer's life to see what caused him to commit these murders, but we only get that scene as a form of explanation behind his motive. It may have to rely on exposition, but at least we would have gotten a decent backstory through the film, but it goes underdeveloped and isn't enough to give our killer proper motivation.
Al Pacino's character, Steve Burns, remains virtually the same throughout the film's runtime. I felt like it was a mistake for Friedkin to give Pacino's character a girlfriend named Nancy (Karen Allen), who has no significant impact on the film's plot. It takes away from the ambiguity of Steve's conflicting sexuality, which would have been interesting to see, but it is not executed well in the film. There are some hints that he may have some changing waters, but we never see him go through this significant change throughout his undercover stints in the world of S&M and leather, which was captured perfectly by director William Friedkin. Friedkin went to several clubs dressed in a jockstrap to capture the erotic nature into the scenes that featured the nightclubs, which astonishes me as to how they got away with a simple R-rating, rather than the X-rating it would have received given its immensely erotic nature. In fact, the film was so graphic, that Richard Hefner, who was the head of the rating board at the time, was quoted to have said: "There are not enough XXXs in the alphabet to rate this movie."
Fun fact: Tobin Bell, who portrayed John Kramer in the Saw franchise, appeared in this movie as an extra.
We will never know the impact those cut 40 minutes had since we never see what great lengths Steve had to go to blend in and not raise any suspicion that he was an undercover cop. Aside from the cut sexual content, Nancy Allen's performance was affected by these cut scenes from the film, as most of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. However, the film has a pretty good supporting character in the form of Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino), who has a lasting presence throughout the movie despite having a handful of scenes, since he is not as severely underused as Nancy Allen's character. Despite these setbacks, Al Pacino gives a pretty engaging performance, his fearful look is genuine throughout the movie, given that he was going into an unknown world, and it helps him pull off the "undercover cop in a scary uncharted waters" role.
What I liked most about the film was its rather infectious soundtrack, which primarily consists of hardcore punk and funk music, which blended perfectly with the scenes taking place in the bars where Pacino dances along with a crowd of goers. Since I'm an avid punk rock fan, it felt nice to hear a Germs song play in a scene in the movie, even if it was just one song featured in the entire film. It still felt great to listen to them one final time before the demise of frontman Darby Crash just 10 months later. Jack Nitzsche's score, on the other hand, is a stark contrast from the excellent soundtrack featured in the film. It's distracting and intrusive, often playing over some scenes, suddenly shifting away from one infectiously danceable song in the club scene to strange mandolin-Esque music playing over Steve having sex with his girlfriend that feels out of place in an erotic thriller.
Cruising doesn't match the greatness of other thrillers like The Silence of the Lambs (1991) but isn't a painfully bad thriller like I Know Who Killed Me (2007). While it pales in comparison to William Friedkin's better works, it nevertheless manages to be a well-made thriller thanks to engaging performances from Al Pacino and Paul Sorvino. It's accompanied by a very infectious soundtrack at the helm, even if the film never takes full advantage of its controversial subject matter.
No copyright infringement is intended with the usage of these images. All images used belong to their respective authors. Information obtained from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, 1st Golden Raspberry Awards, Cruising (1980), and Exorcising Cruising.
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