Cruising: It’s a rare thing when the first words that come to mind to describe a movie are “exploitative trash”. Directed by William Friedkin (who hasn’t made a great movie since the 1970’s) and based on the 1970 book of the same name, the plot involves a homosexual slasher stalking members of the gay S&M community in New York City. A police officer, Steve Burns (played by Al Pacino), is tasked with going undercover to flush the killer out. Burns immerses in their culture, exploring his own sexuality and eventually having gay sex, all in order to get his man, so to speak. Watching this film, you would believe that every homosexual in New York City has a handlebar mustache, a leather jacket and obligatory peaked hat, and lives only to dance, make out, and have sex. Apparently, in 1980, you could throw a rock and hit a group of denim clad gay men loitering about the city, looking for tail. Somehow…I doubt that. Even the Village People had greater depth of character. And the only aberration to the stereotype (i.e. the guy who is actually closer to reality than the others), oh yeah, he gets murdered by one of the ‘deviants‘. Crude, homophobic, and chock full of egregious stereotypes, this is about as an even-handed a portrayal of homosexuality as The Blue Oyster Bar from the “Police Academy” movies. And even if you were able to stomach the misleading salaciousness, you’re still left with a not-very-good thriller full of generally unlikable characters, some just plain weird scenes (there is one in particular involving a big black guy wearing nothing but a jockstrap and a cowboy hat during an interrogation that is just ODD), with a plot that asks more questions than it answers. Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”
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