Cruising (Deluxe Edition)
by William Friedkin
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DVD details
Actor: Al Pacino, Don Scardino, Karen Allen, Paul Sorvino, Richard CoxDirector: William Friedkin
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-09-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Cruising (Deluxe Edition)
DVD Review: Still an important part of gay cinema history
Summary: 4 Stars
No matter what you think of the messages in this film, its important to realize it was groundbreaking nontheless. Especially so is what was really going on in the clubs at the time. I can tell you this is how it really was. Exciting and scary at the same time, you can see how a deadly disease could've spread so quickly. Put this in your DVD collection right next to Boys in the Band, Making Love and Priscilla.DVD Review: "Another Side To Gay Life Revealed"
Summary: 5 Stars
William Friedkin, who directed "The Exorcist", also directs this interesting, and often at times, graphic look, at male homosexuality, circa 1979. This was before AIDS, and the S&M and leather side of gay life in New York is explored, with Al Pacino starring as a gay cop who goes undercover to investigate the murders of many gay men in the gay district of New York City. Not for the faint-at-heart viewer, this gay man was amazed and stunned at a side to my community that I had never viewed before. Very informatibe and interesting, as well as eye opening, "Cruising" has been a movie that many have wanted on DVD for years. Al Pacino is great, and the supporting players are outstanding. The script isn't the strongest, but the movie, after being viewed, really makes people talk, both for its subject matter, and the eventual outcome of the film.
The DVD has a ton of bonuses, including commentary by Friedkin, the trailer, and 2 new featurettes. The picture has been cleaned from the original studio print and looks impeccable.
DVD Review: OK for cheap thrills.
Summary: 3 Stars
Cruising seemed like superficial cheap exploitation when it came out. But I decided to give it another chance when I found a used inexpensive copy recently with director's comments and all. I think now that it stands up reasonably well for the photography and Pacino's reasonably OK acting.It is interesting to get the commentary. What were they thinking?!
Also, I will take the director and producer's word for it that it is a one dimensional snapshot of a unique scene (a few leather bars) at a unique time (post-sexual revolution,pre-aids)and place (New York). They say they had to fly out from Hollywood to see if it was really true. OK, that is interesting, even though the film the scene quickly and leave. All told this is a rather three stars cheap thrills film at best.
It never gets into the heads of the leatherboys or the variety of their sex play and what their various practices do for them. The commentary implied that the leatherboys were only too happy to cooperate and be seen and filmed(surprise, surprise), and that was an interesting historical note that rings quite plausible.
Sorry, but it still seems after 30 years that Cruising was hastily knocked out to make some bucks and get some attention for those who made it. The dialogue is wooden. The characters are very thin and the mystery parts are gimmicky and even corny. Good lord! The killer is a mystery because he has no sperm in his semen. So what? And he is a nut case who has had problems relating to his father!! And they admit that they were switching voices on characters because they wanted to keep viewers disoriented and involved; but there was nothing artsy about it. What depth. LOL.
It is implied that Pacino is being lured into the mentality he is supposed to be impersonating, but there is no character development that makes that implication in anyway interesting artistically. They do keep you wondering, but why should you be very interested in whether this more or less one-dimensional cop is some kind of closet case? OK hint, hint, kinky sex can be intoxicating. I get it. But for me that is a problem -- why just hint, hint? Show some guts and talent and put it out there and explore it. Several other good films have done that with SM -- I can't remember them all. There was one with Eastwood, 9 1/2 Weeks, Belle Du Jour, The Night Porter, Love is the Devil, even Crimes of Passion -- and a fascinating French one that I have never seen on DVD, translates roughly The Prisoner. Too many more to remember.
Basically Cruising is just a kind of what's around the corner suspense flick with some leather and sweaty skin thrown in. Respectable photography, exotic setting, respectable acting by Pacino. OK for an evening of popcorn when you don't have any good other mysteries around.
DVD Review: 2.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 3 Stars
The Bottom Line:
Cruising's problem isn't that it's too controversial, or too exploitative, or too dated--its problem is that it's just not a very compelling movie; with a central mystery that isn't interesting and an enigma of a lead character in Pacino's Steve Burns, the movie simply fails to engage the audience.
DVD Review: A gay "Birth of a Nation"
Summary: 1 Stars
Impossible to watch. Incredibly hate-filled. The homophobia oozes off every frame. The heterosexual world, all bright and clean, spacious, daylit, bright colors. The gay world, all dark and sordid, cramped, dark colored. Gay people, a few campy queens, but mostly leering, threatening wackos.
But the fascinating part is listening to the commentaries and watching the director and producer today DEFENDING their hatred. They actually tried to frame themselves as victims of their illiterate, anti-art protestors!
Of course you have the right to any disgusting, dehumanizing opinion that you please, but applauding the murder of gay people, or even the monsters this movie refers to as gay, is hate speech.
Description of Cruising (Deluxe Edition)
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/18/2007 Run time: 102 minutesAl Pacino hunts for a serial killer in a lurid world of gay leather bars in Cruising. Because of his resemblance to the victims of a series of slayings, cop Steve Burns (Pacino) goes undercover as a gay man, wandering through wild, gyrating bacchanalias straight out of a Tom of Finland painting, hoping that the killer will be drawn to his dark, tormented eyes. Cruising is a peculiar movie, a gritty police procedural that director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) tried to push into a quasi-metaphysical dimension with some casting tricks and subliminal images. Due to the controversy the movie sparked in the gay community, Friedkin goes to great lengths in the commentary and featurettes to defend the authenticity of the movie's sources (about a bizarre scene where a muscular black man wearing nothing but a jock strap and a cowboy hat appears out of nowhere and slaps a suspect being interrogated by the police, Friedkin claims this actually happened, though no context is offered). The movie passes no apparent judgment on the overtly sexual scenes in gay bars...yet clearly these scenes are expected to provoke unease in the viewer. Cruising is sure to provoke arguments: Is Pacino's performance vulnerable or tentative? Is the movie about homophobia or homophobic itself? What does the ending mean? Yet there's no denying it's claimed a place in cinematic history; far more people know about it than have seen it. For that--as well as the stylish cinematography--Cruising is worth seeing. --Bret Fetzer
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