Cruising

Director William Friedkin is best known for his dated cop action film The French Connection and his overrated Antichrist horror-extravaganza The Exorcist. Friedkin’s 1980 film Cruising is the overrated directors masterpiece. The film is one that came out way ahead of its time and was wasted on an American audience that couldn’t appreciate the darker things in the life. Cruising follows a cop (played by Al Pacino) as he goes undercover in the gay S&M subculture hoping to find a homosexual serial killer. This homosexual must be self-loathing, because his targets are always the men he engages in perverted acts with. These victims “made him do it.”

Cruising in a way reminded me of William Lustig’s gritty and sometimes slow action film Maniac. That being said, Maniac star Joe Spinell also makes an appearance in Cruising as a misogynistic cop that forces drag queen prostitutes to perform fellatio on him. Not only does Cruising feature the depravity of the ultra macho S&M subculture, but it also features unexpected members of it. Cruising will be sure to scare anyone the next time they encounter a cop after watching it.

Al Pacino is best known for his performance as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy. The American movie going audience cherishes the Godfather series as the peak of masterful filmmaking. I have no hesitation in stating that Al Pacino’s performance in Cruising is superior to that of his performances in the Godfather series. Let’s face it, any American wop on the street could have played the “stoic” godfather character just as easily. In Cruising, Pacino had to play the role of a cop and a man acting as a perverted homosexual. His performance in Cruising shows both his versatility as an actor and ability to take on daring roles. The whole Sicilian criminal and gangster thing, although hilarious, can get a little old after a while. Until I saw Cruising, I just thought of Al Pacino as your typical Sicilian American exploiting his race for financial gain.

Cruising also features a notable soundtrack that compliments the overall chaotic nature of the film. Originally, the punk legends The Germs were supposed to contribute a number of songs to the films soundtrack. I found it unfortunate that only one The Germs song (Lion’s Share) made the film. The legendary singer of The Germs, Darby Crash, was also a sadistic homosexual that found his idols in Adolf Hitler, Oswald Spengler, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Charles Manson. With Darby Crash’s style of dress and belligerent personality, he would have fit perfectly as one of the of the leather clad men looking to suffer permanent damage after a night at an S&M bar.

The gay community had a hissy fit upon the release of Cruising. People in the homosexual community felt that the film promotes violence and hatred against gays. I think that people who hate gays already have their mind made up on that issue regardless of the film Cruising. If anything, Cruising makes the gay community look a whole lot better than some show like Queer Eye For the Straight Guy. The mainstream homosexual media is a bunch of effeminate fairies that just give Americans more reason to hate them. I also checked out Amazon. com customer reviews for Cruising and an entire army of Gays excrement (lose bowels maybe?) their baseless claims that Cruising is a homophobic film.

Cruising easily has the most depth of any of the films William Friedkin has ever directed and will ever direct. The film takes a look at the psychological motivation of the gay killer and how his Daddy wouldn’t give him any love. Al Pacino seems to find it hard not to get trapped in the world of gay S&M. The man has some serious scenes of self doubt in Cruising in which he explodes with homoerotic anger. The film also portrays the often domestic abuse between gay lovers quite accurately. I have had more than one cop tell me about a gay lover smashing in the face of another. Cruising should have been the first mainstream gay film put on a pedestal and not the viewer friendly gay romanticized love drama Brokeback Mountain.

-Ty E