It is easy to dismiss this film as a piece of commercial psycho sexual exploitation thriller. This was a project that was controversial at the time it went into production and it met a lot of opposition from the same gay scene it wanted to present to a larger audience. If William Friedkin would have decided to direct the film today, it probably didn't cause the same uproar it did back then.
Al Pacino, an actor that brings all his intensity into most of the films in which he appears, seems to have been miscast as the undercover police officer he is supposed to portray on the screen. This was a movie based on real events. The main character, a policeman who worked on the case, probably didn't get a lot of publicity when the movie came out. Gerald Walker's novel was the basis for the screen treatment Mr. Friedkin gives credit as his inspiration for the script he created. In reality, Randy Jurgensen, a real undercover New York policeman, was involved in the investigation of a case that involved the killing of innocent gay victims.
"Cruising" presents a dark side of a faction of the gay life. As depicted frankly in the finished product, it probably will turn off squeamish viewers for the kind of rough scenes presented, something that never had been shown to a wide audience. This was a slice of life in New York City before the arrival of AIDS, something that no one during those careless years probably had in mind and which decimated a lot of the gay population addicted to this form of sexual activity.
The best way to watch the film is to have an open mind as it reflects a period of that culture in which a deranged individual zeroes in this particular group of people to wreck havoc among them.
Al Pacino, an actor that brings all his intensity into most of the films in which he appears, seems to have been miscast as the undercover police officer he is supposed to portray on the screen. This was a movie based on real events. The main character, a policeman who worked on the case, probably didn't get a lot of publicity when the movie came out. Gerald Walker's novel was the basis for the screen treatment Mr. Friedkin gives credit as his inspiration for the script he created. In reality, Randy Jurgensen, a real undercover New York policeman, was involved in the investigation of a case that involved the killing of innocent gay victims.
"Cruising" presents a dark side of a faction of the gay life. As depicted frankly in the finished product, it probably will turn off squeamish viewers for the kind of rough scenes presented, something that never had been shown to a wide audience. This was a slice of life in New York City before the arrival of AIDS, something that no one during those careless years probably had in mind and which decimated a lot of the gay population addicted to this form of sexual activity.
The best way to watch the film is to have an open mind as it reflects a period of that culture in which a deranged individual zeroes in this particular group of people to wreck havoc among them.