Cruising (Deluxe Edition)
by William Friedkin
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Actor: Al Pacino, Don Scardino, Karen Allen, Paul Sorvino, Richard CoxDirector: William Friedkin
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: James A. Contner
Writer: William Friedkin
Editor: Bud S. Smith
Editor: M. Scott Smith
Producer: Burtt Harris
Producer: Jerry Weintraub
Writer: Gerald Walker
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-09-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 116796
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Actors: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, Don Scardino.
- Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC.
- Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0). Subtitles: English, Spanish, French.
- Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
- Run Time: 102 minutes. Rated R.
DVD Reviews of Cruising (Deluxe Edition)
DVD Review: On a cruise to nowhere, 27 years later
Summary: 3 Stars
The colossal failure of "Cruising" in 1980 should have been easy to predict. When you make a story about extreme taboo topics (Gay SM murders) and couple it with a bizarre, disjointed script, then outright refuse to make a linear story out of it (I could never figure out why the killer always seemed to be a different person with the same creepy voice), then you arrive with a film that hardly anyone in 1980 would sit through.
Ironically enough, one of the most controversial points to the movie now seems almost nostalgic. The seedy SM underground bars like The Cellblock or The Anvil that used to inhabit lower Manhattan's Meat Packing district are a memory now, replaced by nightclubs, condos, yuppies and the locations of a bunch of "Sex in the City" shoots. The notorious Lure Bar, the final and long gone holdout of this era, was even used as a "Sex in the City" backdrop - with little or no controversy attached. How things have changed.
That makes the "shocking" hyper-sexuality of the bar scenes somewhat bemusing. Yes, in the "Boogie Nights" mania of the late 70's, prior to AIDS, skyrocketing property values and Rudy Giuliani, these playspaces and these activities did happen. It was underground, wild, crazy...and as William Friedkin saw it, a perfect backdrop for a crime mystery. Al Pacino (who has professed his distaste for the final cut of "Cruising" and is conspicuous in his absence from the DVD extras) was keen on taking a part that would be unconventional and nonconformist. So he donned a leather jacket and took the role of Steve Burns, a young undercover cop who fits a "common victim" profile.
Thus begins a peculiar game of cat and mouse, with Pacino trying to pass as a gay leather daddy and showing all the signs of a conflict with his inner closet. Which, in the bizarre ending to this movie, is left a hanging question...especially with the little piece of business concerning Karen Allen. There are some bits of unintended humor, like when Powers Boothe attempts to explain the Hankie Code to Pacino and when an irritated bar patron snaps at Pacino about flagging the wrong color. But for the most part, the focus on seediness and the disconnected pacing of the script keep most of "Cruising" at a level where the suspense is at a minimum.
In fact, the most revealing thing about this "deluxe" DVD (hard to define it as such, since there has never been a "basic" edition) is the pair of featurettes. In "The History of Cruising" and "Exorcising Cruising," Friedkin and others dissect what they were trying to accomplish with "Cruising" and why they didn't look at it as a gay movie. They also partially explain the ambiguity with the killer's many faces/one voice trick (giving it an almost horror/supernatural bent, and considering The Exorcist, hardly a stretch). A former detective who was a consultant for the movie explains the presence of the musclebound cop in the jock-strap, among other plot points. The interviews with minor cast members almost 30 years later are interesting as well.
The features (in particular, "Exorcizing Cruising") also address the controversy. While I can see the point that there was a dearth of gay characters in the movies and therefore a gay serial killer made lots of folks virulently uneasy, I was personally more insulted by The Boys in the Band than "Cruising." Even with the backdrop a serial killer movie, the men in the bar scenes are looking like they are hitting the bars because they belong there and are enjoying themselves; as opposed to the bitter, regretful losers of TBITB cast of closet queens.
What the commentaries don't address is why "Cruising," which is a dynamite movie for atmosphere and grit, was ultimately such an incoherent mess. There's a great soundtrack featuring The Germs, Mink DeVille and John Hiatt when he was punky, a twist from the usual disco-drenched music of any movie tagged as "gay." And finally, there is Pacino. Looking for all the world like a damaged and conflicted man, the ambiguity of the final third of "Cruising" (Is he gay or not? Is Burns maybe a killer, too? Who is that leatherman going into the bar at the end?) made for an unsatisfying finale. More a curiosity now than a controversy, "Cruising" is now a strange look into a time long passed.
Incidentally, given the notorious bent to "Cruising's" history, it is interesting to think about some of the movies after that bear a resemblance. Hard, 8MM and even modern horror movies like Hostel or the Saw movies owe a debt to "Cruising."
Description of Cruising (Deluxe Edition)
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/18/2007 Run time: 102 minutesBestsellers in DVD
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