User Reviews

It's been 39 years since the movie CRUISING was released. Poorly received by critics, making only a modest amount of money and surrounded by controversy from both the gay and anti-gay community it certainly stirred the pot in 1980. One would think that in those 39 years the movie would be less controversial but the fact is it remains so.

If you've never seen the film it's a murder mystery set in the hard core S&M gay community of New York City at the time. Director William Friedkin says in the extras that he always saw it as a murder mystery and not about the gay community but others disagree. Gay men are being murdered, stabbed to death and even dismembered in various locations. Police detective Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) decides the best way to handle the case is to send someone in undercover.

He recruits a young officer named Steve Burns (Al Pacino). The assignment is to infiltrate the S&M clubs and leather bars the victims once frequented and find as much information as possible. At first reluctant to take the job Burns changes his mind realizing that this could lead him to a gold shield and detective position bypassing walking a beat. He takes the job as well as the condition not to tell anyone about what he is doing. This includes his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen).

Burns moves into an apartment in the gay community and begins making friends, first with next door neighbor Ted Bailey (Don Scardino). Through Ted he gains some information about the community as well as which clubs to frequent. Having not been exposed to what takes place there it's an eye opener for him as well as the uninformed viewer. Bondage, sexual acts taking place for all to see and rampant random sex are the norm here.

As Burns begins to look into this lifestyle his character begins to change as well. There are moments when you're not quite sure just how far he's taken this assignment but nothing is seen or certain. It is affecting him though. When he gives Edelson a potential suspect he and the man are arrested, he is slapped by an imposing detective in a jock strap and the suspect is beaten as well. This is not what he expected either.

Eventually the potential suspect is revealed but not before several possibilities are offered. Through it all the question of just who are these men and who is Steve Burns really are pondered. Their treatment of one another is called into question while at the same time their treatment at the hands of the police is also noted.

As for the movie itself when I saw it on its initial release, even as a Friedkin fan, I was disappointed. It didn't feel like a complete movie and used far too little dialogue to propel the film. The cinematography and editing were fantastic but the story itself seemed to present such an unappealing worlds that it was difficult to remove oneself from it and pay attention only to the mystery at its core. It is by no means a pleasant film and none of the characters with the exception of perhaps Edelson and Ted Bailer are sympathetic. And Pacino, whose acting prowess is well known, feels like he's just not quite sure what way to go here.

As I said the movie didn't do major business at the box office in spite of the fact that Pacino was coming in off of the success of AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, SERPICO and THE GODFATHER PART 2. While he had the clout to get this production under way Friedkin wasn't as hot at the time having just had two commercial failures with THE BRINKS JOB and SORCERER (two highly underrated movies in my opinion). Odds are the problem was the content of the film and the controversy surrounding it.

The gay community was fearful of the film being released by feeling that it portrayed them all as this select group of S&M leather wearing roughnecks. They attempted to stop or slow down the production while it was being filmed and protested it. On the other end religious groups were opposed to the film for what they felt was promoting a gay lifestyle. Odd how both saw the film as a problem for completely opposite reasons.

Arrow has done their usual wonderful job of making the movie not only accessible but in the best format possible. This is a brand new restoration in 4k from the original film negative, supervised and approved by writer-director William Friedkin. Extras this time are limited but important none the less for fans of Pacino, Friedkin or the film itself. They include an archival audio commentary track by Friedkin, "The History of CRUISING" an archival featurette about the making of the film and its origins, "Exorcising CRUISING" another archival featurette looking at the controversy surrounding the film and the original trailer.

One word of warning I would offer to those considering picking this up is to be well aware of the subject content of the extreme gay community this movie depicts. It doesn't present it in the most favorable light which would account for the gay community that objected at the time. It is indeed graphic even by today's standards. Know this going in.

Despite being appraoced with New York Times reporter Gerald Walker's 1970 novel Cruising several times, William Friedkin (The Exorcist, Sorcerer and perhaps not as successfully, Jade) wasn't interested. He changed his mind after an unsolved series of murders in New York's leather bars.

Articles by Village Voice journalist Arthur Bell helped inform this film, as well as NYPD officer Randy Jurgensen, who went into the same deep cover as this film's protagonist Steve Burns. Then, Friedkin learned that Paul Bateson, a doctor's assistant who appeared in The Exorcist, had been implicated in the crimes while serving a sentence for another murder.

Friedkin did some of his research for the film by attending gay bars dressed in only a jockstrap, but by the time the movie began filming, he had been barred from two of the biggest bars, the Mine Shaft and Eagle's Nest, due to the controversy surrounding the movie.

Much like The New York Ripper and God Told Me To, this movie feels like one set at the end of the world - New York City near the close of the 20th century. Someone is picking up gay men, murdering them and leaving their body parts in the Hudson.

Officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) - who is exactly the type of man who the killer has been after - is on the case, assigned by Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) to infiltrate the foreign world of S&M and leather bars. But as the case goes on, he begins to lose himself and his relationsip with Nancy (Karen Allen).

Soon, he learns of just how brutal the NYPD is to gay men - even if they're just suspects. And he finds himself growing closer to his neighbor Ted (Don Scardino, Squirm).

By the end, nothing is truly clear. While the killer may be Stuart Richards, a schizophrenic who attacks Burns with a knife in Morningside Park, it could also be Ted's angry boyfriend Gregory (James Remar). After all, Ted's mutilated body is discovered while Stuart is in custody. Or the real killer is still out there - perhaps he's even a patrol cop (Joe Spinell). The truth is never told.

Spinell is incredible in this. That's no surprise. He used his real life for inspiration, as there's a line that talks about his wife leaving him and moving to Florida with his daughter. His wife Jean Jennings had just done exactly that before this movie was shot.

The real vesion of this movie may never be released. Friedkin claims it took fifty rounds to get the MPAA to award the film with an R rating. Over 40 minutes of footage was cut, which consisted of time spent in the gay bars. The director claims that these scenes showed "the most graphic homosexuality with Pacino watching, and with the intimation that he may have been participating."

This footage also creates another suspect - Burns himself may have become a killer.

When Friedkin sought to restore the missing footage for the film's DVD release, he discovered that United Artists no longer had it and may have even destroyed all of the cut footage.

In 2013, James Franco and Travis Mathews released Interior. Leather Bar., a metafictionalized account of the two filmmakers trying to recreate the lost 40 minutes of Cruising.

There's a disclaimer at the start that says, "This film is not intended as an indictment of the homosexual world. It is set in one small segment of that world, which is not meant to be representative of the whole." Years later, Friedkin would claim that MPAA and United Artists required this, hoping that it would absolve them of the controversy that had been all over this production.

That's because protests had started at the urging of gay journalist Arthur Bell, the aforementioned Village Voice writer whose series of articles on the Doodler's killing of gay men inspired this movie. There were numerous disruptions to the filming, as protesters blasted music and loud noises at all filming locations, leading to hours of ADR to fix the ruined dialogue.

Arrow Video has released a new blu ray of this film that is spectacular. No surprise - Arrow always has great releases.

This release features a brand new restoration from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, supervised and approved by writer-director William Friedkin, along with audio commentary from the 2007 DVD. The two features from that release, The History of Cruising and Exorcizing Cruising, are also on the disc.

This is a FRIEDKIN movie. Consequently, it is soulless, dark and physical. There are no heroes, the range goes from unclear/mixed up/tortured souls/loonies to the dephts of hell. It is also highly interpretative, you can not expect a logical script and a "I did it" smile or a "walk towards the sun" type of ending. So, it's a question of taste if you like his movies or not. I DO. I very much doubt that Pacino or Sorvino regret making this film. It is riveting. For one, characters are not even gray, they are a mystery. Sorvino's character, for instance is so blank, that you even wonder if he cares about anything, including Burns' fate. Pacino's character is pretty ambitious, but other than that he is completely controversial. Although he shows some kind of goodness (towards his neighbor, for instance), the ending even kinda questions that (was it because he had sexual intentions with the guy or that he just wanted to do some good?). Also, he sometimes feels overwhelmed by the undercover job ("I don't know if I can do this") but then he starts to adapt. One of the possible ideas of this movie is: you dance with the devil and then you start to like it. In any case, it leaves conclusions to the viewer. The atmosphere and especially the music are truly amazing and original. 9/10.

A serial-killer is attacking homosexual men in New York and the police have no leads. An ambitious young cop goes undercover and hangs out at the gay bars and nightspots to lure the killer out, but finds himself being changed by the scene he becomes part of.

Based on a book by Gerald Walker, this is an intriguing (and daring for the time) delve into the NYC homo underground of leather bars and pick-ups in Central Park, and is a great pre-Aids snapshot of a particular era of the city's history. Unfortunately, as a crime thriller it's pretty pedestrian; the murders are bland, the investigation boring and the suggestive ending just plain confusing. Friedkin is a very stylish director, but here he deliberately abandons that for a documentary-like approach; this adds to the drama but kills any suspense, although James Contner's ultra-dark photography is terrific. Pacino is likeably believable, Sorvino does a gritty textbook job of a police captain who hasn't slept in a week and the supporting cast are good. Ultimately however, this film is more interesting as a pre-political-correctness depiction of a particularly sordid corner of society. As with other urban-ghetto films of the time (Busting, Fort Apache - The Bronx, etc) it was crucified by the white liberal arts media as queer-bashing propaganda, but of course it's not - they just didn't like the way it depicts the specific social scene the story is set amongst. An important document of a time, but not really a very good movie.

These types of clubs in the meat-packing district of New York are where Clive Barker got some inspiration for Hellraiser so seeing this onscreen is really interesting. There are some great moments in this with Al Pacino's character. Really the storytelling is very solid and I think it pulls you right into this world. It's definitely a dark film and I feel bad for the wife because she doesn't seem to have a clue. I just like the mature subject matter, and I think for the time, this was way ahead of the game. Friedkin is really a master director who knows how to make a compelling film and he didn't shy away from difficult subjects.

William Friedkin's controversial 'Cruising' is a challenging and oftentimes frustrating film. The story centers around Al Pacino going undercover to find a serial killer in the gay BDSM culture of late 70's NYC. The story seems simply enough, right? Well, it's deceiving as what Friedkin does is take the audience into a dark abyss of sordid sex, extreme debauchery, and brutal violence. It is, quite honestly, one of the more uncomfortable American films of the period to sit through.

The problem with the picture are the character motivations are vague for virtually all involved (Pacino, the killer, and the police chief). Why is the killer doing this? Why is Pacino starting to lose it? What is the deal with the police chief? Does he care about Pacino or not? Everything is so opaque and mysterious that the film is both fascinating and aggravating at the same time. And perhaps that was done on purpose, but considering reportedly 40 minutes was cut from the film I would imagine that many of those questions I posed were more clear. The ending itself is even more strange and confusing and I would suspect that while the ending wouldn't have been wrapped up in a nice little bow for the audience (nor would I expect that in a Friedkin film), the viewer could at least attempt to make more sense of it.

Cruising is set in New York where severed body parts are being found in the Hudson River & a gay man into extreme leather & S&M sex named Loren Lukas (Arnaldo Santana) is found brutally murdered, a single serial killer targeting the extreme gay community is thought to be responsible. The New York gay community doesn't have much of a relationship with the NYPD & getting any sort of information is like getting blood out of stone, Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) needs a man undercover so recruits patrol cop Steve Burns (Al Pacino) who matches the victims physical profiles. Steve accepts the assignment & start cruising the notorious extreme gay S&M bars in New York looking for clues & trying to attract the killer...

This American German co-production was written & directed by William Friedkin & while it has a notorious reputation I must admit that I quite liked Cruising (the film not the real life act I hasten to add...). The script was based on the novel by Gerald Walker & is a fairly sleazy, seedy serial killer thriller but one that I found strangely entertaining. It's gritty, uncompromising & sometimes explicit but that adds to it rather than detracts in my opinion, it gives it a certain gravity although it's certainly not a film for everyone & I could see it offending more than a few people. It's interesting to note although maybe not surprising that apart from Pacino's wife I don't think there is another female speaking role in the entire film. The basic story of a detective going undercover in a sleazy world he didn't even know existed is reasonable, we don't really get inside his head that much & while we know it's affecting him we aren't really sure why. I think Friedkin could have expanded this side of the script a bit more to be honest. The way the killer is tracked down is also a little bit random, the way the killer just happened to try & chat Pacino up & then Pacino is handed a load of photo's on the slim chance he might recognise someone who he does. A bit to much of a coincidence for me. I would have liked a bit more detective work & the ending is very frustrating & abrupt which leaves the viewer wondering what the hell has just happened. Sure the ending is open to viewer interpretation but since it's a bit of a mess it's very hard to make any definite conclusion & you finish watching the film feeling a little cheated which isn't good. Having said that Cruising remained nothing if not watchable & fairly engrossing for me, I suppose it's a bit like a car crash where you just have to look & for me the gay bar scenes are certainly memorable although I am not sure they paint the gay community in a particularly good light. I mean according to Cruising all gays are hunky bodybuilder types who dress in tight t-shirts or vests, wear leather cowboy chaps, wear those leather caps & tight jeans who are all into kinky S&M leather bondage sex with complete strangers.

There is some priceless dialogue in Cruising that is laugh out loud funny, I know I shouldn't laugh but I did. The 'has anyone ever smoked your pipe' & 'come here, I want to show you my nightstick' lines had me in hysterics. Then of course there's the infamous interrogation scene when the NYPD use a naked except for a cowboy hat & jock strap big black guy to beat a suspect! A truly surreal yet funny scene that I probably won't forget in a hurry. Apparently cut by forty odd minutes Cruising can be pretty graphic at times, from vicious knife murders to severed limbs to autopsies, from explicit sexual dialogue to sequences set in gay bars to depictions of S&M. I'm sure many will will much here to object to but none of it really bothered me to be honest. Cruising caused a fair bit of controversy & there were prominent protests both during the filming of it & when it opened to theatres.

Technically the film is very good, it's well made & has that Hollywood polish about it although it still remains fairly gritty & sleazy just as it should. Shot on location in New York & in real gay bars there. The acting is very good from all involved, Pacino is just a great actor anyway & watchable in any film he's ever been in really.

Cruising is not a film for everyone & I think that is pretty clear but I have to say that I liked it & was pretty impressed. I don't really care if this ruffles a few feathers in the gay community or upsets anyone, I liked it & that's all that matters to me.

'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.

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.

William Friedkin never quite returned to the heights of his early masterpieces The French Connection and The Exorcist, but in 1980 he plunged to new depths with Cruising. This thoroughly unsympathetic cop thriller set in the underbelly of New York's S&M scene seems to be rather over-impressed with its own courage in dealing with a hitherto taboo subject. The problem with Cruising is that the subject matter is treated terribly superficially – this is little more than a murder mystery, with scenes of excessive sleaze and gay bar activities tossed in to stir up some controversy. One almost feels that Friedkin wasn't happy with the idea of a simple, straightforward cop thriller, so he came up with all the gay scene trappings to add spice to his film. He uses gay characters and gay lifestyles merely to shock us, but never really gets down to making a serious statement about his sexual and political intentions.

Dismembered corpses are found in the Hudson River in New York. The police believe that the deaths are the work of a serial killer who is preying upon gay men, luring them from gay bars in the city, raping them, then killing them and throwing their cut-up remains into the water. Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) of the New York Police Department appoints rookie cop Steve Burns (Al Pacino) to crack the case. Burns – a straight guy with a steady girlfriend - is approximately the same build as the victims. Edelson hopes that he will go undercover in the gay underworld scene and attract a little attention upon himself – perhaps even lure the killer into the open. Determined initially to take on the case to win promotion, Burns gradually finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into the unfamiliar gay culture. His relationship with girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen) suffers, and he finds himself uncertain of his own sexual identity and orientation.

The film aroused a large degree of protest when released, partly because it was ahead of its time and partly because gay activists were afraid that the film might set back their cause. Sometimes such controversy inadvertently generates extra box office for a film, but in the case of Cruising the film was a flop. Pacino gives an acceptable performance as the emotionally and sexually bewildered cop, though the script does him few favours. In a city as big as New York, it seems almost unthinkable that an undercover cop could be chosen to ensnare a serial killer merely because he is roughly the same build as one of the killer's preferred victims. It is such an unconvincing plot point, yet so important to the whole story, that it wrecks the film's credibility. On the plus side, the gay bar scenes seem fairly accurate, but less agreeable is the way some of the anti-gay characters who people the film are presented too over-the-top (for example, the police interrogator who assaults a gay man in his custody whilst wearing a jock-strap and cowboy hat.) The film's climax also sits awkwardly, especially the way that it hints that maybe Pacino himself has committed one of the murders. If we pursue this line of thought, are we to assume that the film is saying that indulging in gay activities will ultimately turn you into a killer? Cruising is a confused, repellent thriller. It treads ground that many movie makers are afraid to step upon, but sadly it never tells us much about the places and people it attempts to explore and emerges as a somewhat disappointing film.