Cruising

The structure continues to loosen, and although Friedkin - like Coppola - has always had difficulty with endings, this one is so arbitrary it's as if he just gave up. Read full review

Cruising is more of an exploitation effort as opposed to a genuine mind-bender. The film concentrates on the gay underground in New York City, although Friedkin's take on a sexually charged mystery is more funny than challenging Read full review

What's left is the framework for a graphic, brutal, sickening film (1980), without the violent effects that might have made sense (however illegitimate) out of the conception. Like The Exorcist, it alternates five minutes of shock with ten minutes of dull exposition, plenty of time to watch Al Pacino wrestle with his miserably conceived character. Read full review

What Friedkin's film is about is anybody's guess. If he just wanted to make a thriller, he has made a clumsy and unconvincing one. If he wanted to explore the psychology of his characters, he has left out most of the relevant information. If he intended to illuminate the tricky subject of S&M, he hasn't even scratched the surface. "Cruising" is quite effective in working up an atmosphere of dread: the ominous bar scenes are butch grand guignol, full of sweaty flesh, menacing shadows and barely glimpsed acts of degradation performed by glowering, bearded men in black leather and chains. But who are these people and why are they doing all these kinky things? Friedkin isn't interested in explaining his milieu; he merely offers it up as a superficially shocking tableau for the titillation and horror of his audience. [18 Feb 1980, p.92]

Viewers are spared nothing as Steve Burns undergoes degrading brutality after brutality; virtually nobody is portrayed sympathetically. Read full review

What Cruising does have, then, is a claim to narrow truth and limited verisimilitude. What it does not have is a mind. [15 Feb 1980]

Like any approach to the bizarre, it is fascinating for about 15 minutes. In many respects, Cruising [from the novel by Gerald Walker] resembles the worst of the ‘hippie’ films of the 1960s. Taking away the kissing, caressing and a few bloody killings, Friedkin has no story, though picture pretends to be a murder mystery combined with a study of Al Pacino’s psychological degradation. Read full review

Cruising is a lurid, shambles, at once drawn to obscene stimulation in the form of hideous crimes and sadomasoschistic sexual appetites and yet dramatically evasive and incomprehensible. Even the most ardent sensation-seekers are likely to trudge out of this fiasco with their brows knit into a collective "Huh?" [18 Feb 1980, p.B1]

Technically the movie is flawless. One scene in Central Park, when Pacino confronts the murder suspect on a deserted rain-slicked path, is haunting and beautfully photographed. But that's hardly a reason to sit through the rest of this wretched film. [22 Feb 1980, p.19]