Cruising (1980) Director William Friedkin's 1971 "The French Connection" kicked off a whole new sub-genre.......New York City as the ultimate urban Hellscape, a constant bubbling cauldron of crime, drugs, violence, corruption, police brutality and racism that almost nobody gets out of alive......
Leave it to Friedkin, who thrived on excess and controversy, to have the last word on New-York-as-Hell, capping off the genre with this twisted, blood drenched tour of the city's dangerous gay bars that specialize in bondage and sadism.
The only thing missing here would be a gay Jack The Ripper, stalking, stabbing and leaving assorted severed body parts bobbing in the Hudson river....
Oh, wait a sec.......that's not missing. He's more than present, whoever he is and very busy.
Hot on his trail is young undercover cop Steve Burns (Al Pacino), recruited by his boss (Paul Sorvino) to mix and mingle through the leather bars in hopes of nabbing a suspect.
Yep, it's as grisly, grim and grindhouse as it sounds, filled with agonized victims screaming out their last breaths and lovely scenes of the bar room guys greasing up their fists for random encounters....
Upon its release, Friedkin expressed dislike of Pacino's droopy, moody, broody performance, then later recanted, saying the actor's subdued work grew on him.
Didn't grow on us at all. But then again, maybe Pacino had the right idea traipsing through the entire movie as if he's either half asleep or hung over......the two best conditions to be in for anyone watching the film.
Unlike the runaway pop-culture lolapalooza he scored in "The Exorcist", Friedkin's Gay House Of Horrors found favor with neither critics or audiences. Gays sputtered in disgusted outrage....(but given the community was on the verge of the oncoming AIDS apocalypse, "Crusing" became the least of their woes) Everybody else ignored the film.
The film itself? Sometimes it does function effectively, if you start to think of it as a Dario Argento-ish, gay Giallo....with Friekdin fairly salivating over the kill scenes.....
But the director's delusions of grandeur finally overtake him with an embarrassing, pathetic attempt at an ambiguous ending. And he was on the money with his first assessment of Pacino's performance.....whatever's going on with his character, he keeps it to himself to the very shot.
And by that time, we doubt if anyone viewing the film gave a rat's ass anyway. 1 star (*).
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