Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Edith Hobbart William Friedkin directed not only The French Connection and The Exorcist, he also directed The Boys In The Band then years before Cruising. If there is an evolution in how the straight world saw the gay world in the decade between Boys In The Band and Cruising, the evolution is backwards. The gay scene in Crusing is sheer hell and I have to believe that it reflected the Country's mood of the day. In not such subtle ways Cruising tells us about the depravity of one group threatening the other. If you think I'm wrong, why then the gay sex and enviroment is wrapped in violent rock music in which actual feelings are not even present but the heterosexual sex scenes between - the always wonderful Al Pacino and the beautiful Karen Allen are wrapped in lyrical classical music, all feeling, tenderness and light. As soon as the film ended I had to wash my face and pour myself a double scotch on the rocks. I was kind of angry and definitely disturbed. Oops, maybe I recommending Cruising without meaning to.

mark.waltz The controversy over this supposed anti-gay film has stirred debate for nearly 40 years. The slaying of gay men part of the leather and s&m scene is violent and ugly, a view of just one small portion of the community. I've seen it through various gay pride and marches, Folsom Street Fair, visits to Silver Lake near downtown Los Angeles, and various Halloween parades. It does exist, and this is part of its story in the gay naked city.While cop Al Pacino comes off a little brusk, he's just out to do his job, even if disguising himself as a gay man is repulsive to him. He's not homophobic, just not interested in that sort of thing. But in spite of his reluctance and longterm relationship with Karen Allen, he's gotta do what he's assigned to do. So it's off to the gay leather bars of midtown Manhattan and the woods of Central Park.The murders are brutal, showing the fear of the victim before they are killed. This lifestyle isn't just about the gays; perversion crosses over and this just uses a small portion of the gay community to tell its story. It's just not a very good movie. Don Scardino plays an effeminate gay man who befriends Pacino, and it's obvious that Pacino likes him in spite of their differing sexualities. As a gay man, I look back on it as a warning against promiscuity, and with the AIDS crisis just around the corner, it's a bit prophetic.

PimpinAinttEasy So was Cruising supposed to be a thriller? Or was it about one man's gradual "descent" into a subculture which is looked down upon by society and the police department that employs him? Friedkin has a tough job on hand - he is making a thriller, so the film needs the thrills and the twists. But he is also making a film about a cop who is gradually attracted to the lifestyle of the people he is spying on. Friedkin does not do a good job handling these two aspects of the film or stringing them together. In the end, Cruising is neither a great thriller not a great character study.I really wanted to like this movie. I was waiting for the enthralling scenes where Pacino turned it on. But instead you have many scenes with Pacino casually walking into an underground gay bar and looking around at the debauchery going on around him. It is almost like Friedkin is saying - look, this is all so provocative. But the blatant scenes of debauchery leave you cold rather than shocked. Friedkin did such a great job gradually building up the changes in Regan's personality as she is taken over by Demon Pasusu in The Exorcist. But there is none of that ingenuity in Cruising. A bit of subtlety would have helped the movie. Instead, you are hit on the head with all the gay sex scenes. The hard rock music played during the scenes in the bar are cheesy. And so are the actors who play the gay men taking part in the debauchery.Also, Pacino is introduced a good fifteen minutes into the film. We know nothing about him. Is he a conservative cop? Does he dislike gay people? We are told literally nothing about this character.The scenes which indicate Pacino's increasing attraction to the S&M scenes are few and far between. They are quite flimsy as well. The ambiguous ending was a bit hard to believe. There is nothing that came before the ending that adds any weight to the ambiguity.Sorvino and Pacino seemed to be sleepwalking through their roles. Pacino is really good in some of the scenes (like the one where is dancing with a patron at the bar. That was intense.). But he is nowhere as intense as he is in Serpico. The scene with Powers Boothe was quite funny. But another one where Pacino is told off by a patron at the bar came across as trite.We do get a good look around New York. The film made me wonder what it would have been like to live in a great city like that in the 70s and 80s. A city that gave the opportunity to a man to become whatever he wanted to be.Norman Mailer wrote (in Tough Guys Don't Dance) that people become cops to escape the criminal or deviant inside them. I guess Pacino's character in the movie confirms to this view.

sohrmn 'Cruising' is not an especially good film. Not as a gruseome, gritty crime thriller. Not as an adaption of a crime novel. Not as one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to depict, often quite explicitly, the"after hours" life-style of some gay men.The film depicts – intentionally or not – gay and bisexual men in a manner starkling similar to Hollywod vampires; i.e. nocternal, decadent, amoral and predatory.Granted, it could be argued that the film's decadent aspects – namley the S&M leather bars and depicting the men who visit these bars as willingess to engage in casual, even public, sex acts may be accurate.In the sexual liberation ethos of the 1970s (filming largely took place in the summer of 1979), before the AIDS pandemic, it is certainly possible that this is how some (mostly white, middle class) gay and bisexual men liked to "get down" and party after work.The problem is that 'some' becomes 'all' as far as this film is concerned. The film makers had many creative and simple ways to better depict the gay community without being a bland, public service announcement.The undercover cop has a gay neighbor who is a nice character (played by a terrific actor) but is not really given much to do, except be brutally murdered.Franky, even the film's stars are not really given much to do, largely because the film removed much of character development, motivation and story arches found within the novel.As a crime drama, we have a depiction of the New York City police department that is, frankly, down right scary.I am surprised that members of law enforcement are not as outraged as the gay community is on how this film depicts them. 'Criminal Minds' or 'NCIS, it ain't.The 'investigation' into a serial killer basically boils down to one straight man posing as a regular bar at kinky gay bars in the hopes that the killer will try and pick him up.Basically, this means paying a straight man to dance in sweaty/smoky bars and then being awfully surprised that this is not an effective way to track down a serial killer.Apparently, all that late night dancing (to some funky disco and punk music) gives the undercover agent a sexual identity crisis, which, in turn, transforms him into a gay murderer.After the gay serial killer is caught, the gay neighbor is killed, apparently, by the undercover cop.Yup, our film's hero becomes a gay serial killer after catching a gay serial killer because....um...er....I have no idea. He hung out with gay and bisexual men? His girlfriend dumped him? He listened to punk rock music? The homophobia, sexism and good-old-fashion bad writing in this film makes for a rather tragic triad."Tragic" because the film has got a great cast and crew involved with it. The novel itself could be adapted into a great film. I even enjoyed the retro, 1970s music.Film audiences -- gay or straight -- deserve better. Fans of gritty, crime thrillers deserve better. Heck, fans of vampires or the S&M scene deserve better.