Yes, Cruising has gay people. Lots of them. Most of them in leather, costumes (there's a "cop night" at a club, ironic for Pacino's character), who lead double lives with their leather and homosexual sex at night, and successful careers during the day. But as William Friedkin points out repeatedly on the newly released DVD, the West Village Manhattan backdrop of the S & M bars and bondage-fetish lifestyle is just that, a backdrop. He's not intending to make a statement either way that this way of life is bad or not. It's a murder mystery story that, in a sense, could've took place in any environment (look at it as though the setting were regular heterosexual bars, with a man getting at women, and it wouldn't be much different if only for, uh, sex and misogyny misplaced). It's still meant as neo-noir, and it's a good one. That it's not great should be expected.
It's plot ends up a little confusing (which, Friedkin also said, is part of his own metaphor for the story in the picture as one doesn't know who is really the killer, killers merging perhaps, or a killer still lurking at the end of the film even as things look tidy plot wise). But this isn't too much of a deterrent to enjoying the bulk of Cruising, as a cop (Pacino) goes undercover in the Village to search for a killer who's taking out gays, either by stabbing repeatedly or by cutting off a body limb or two, dumping in the river. We get the missteps (wrong suspect brought in, and in a bizarre moment a big black guy slaps him and Pacino around a bit, which oddly enough Friedkin also says was based on a real incident), the obsessive following of John Struthers, and even some dark, unsettling tension that edges towards the erotic. It also helps that Friedkin has a good docu-drama type of cinematography at hand (meant to be in b&w), and superb songs from Willy DeVille and the Germs.
But it doesn't mean Cruising is without flaws. Maybe more-so for some. A central one for me is that Pacino's character isn't fully developed. We get a lot of scenes early on establishing the killer, this environment, and Friedkin gets a very good feel for this world, this sort of enclosed place where things are surreal but charged with an energy that isn't alien. But Pacino is sort of left with "he's got a girlfriend he loves, that's it", and he has to work within a slightly 2-dimensional frame of a character. Which he can still do as well as an actor like Pacino can do, with few-to-no BIG scenes out outbursts or what-have-you. Yet as this officer plunges further into a situation he can't control, and can't totally assimilate to (the most he goes towards being in homosexual contact is getting tied up in a scene ala one of the deceased, saved by other cops who burst in before going any further). The one little piece of interest is suggestion, which is half Pacino half Friedkin, where the contact of being around this world of the clubs and these people get to him when he does have regular sex with his girlfriend Karen Allen. He's changed, sort of subliminally, in how he perceives contact, which is also seen with the character Ted.
It's a little trashy, actually respectable, and a bit better than you might've heard from the initial critical reactions. Cruising isn't any great shakes, but it's almost fun in the depths that Friedkin goes to in giving just that slight turn of the screws to a detective genre piece. It shakes things up just enough to get noticed, for better or worse, as an original work.
It's plot ends up a little confusing (which, Friedkin also said, is part of his own metaphor for the story in the picture as one doesn't know who is really the killer, killers merging perhaps, or a killer still lurking at the end of the film even as things look tidy plot wise). But this isn't too much of a deterrent to enjoying the bulk of Cruising, as a cop (Pacino) goes undercover in the Village to search for a killer who's taking out gays, either by stabbing repeatedly or by cutting off a body limb or two, dumping in the river. We get the missteps (wrong suspect brought in, and in a bizarre moment a big black guy slaps him and Pacino around a bit, which oddly enough Friedkin also says was based on a real incident), the obsessive following of John Struthers, and even some dark, unsettling tension that edges towards the erotic. It also helps that Friedkin has a good docu-drama type of cinematography at hand (meant to be in b&w), and superb songs from Willy DeVille and the Germs.
But it doesn't mean Cruising is without flaws. Maybe more-so for some. A central one for me is that Pacino's character isn't fully developed. We get a lot of scenes early on establishing the killer, this environment, and Friedkin gets a very good feel for this world, this sort of enclosed place where things are surreal but charged with an energy that isn't alien. But Pacino is sort of left with "he's got a girlfriend he loves, that's it", and he has to work within a slightly 2-dimensional frame of a character. Which he can still do as well as an actor like Pacino can do, with few-to-no BIG scenes out outbursts or what-have-you. Yet as this officer plunges further into a situation he can't control, and can't totally assimilate to (the most he goes towards being in homosexual contact is getting tied up in a scene ala one of the deceased, saved by other cops who burst in before going any further). The one little piece of interest is suggestion, which is half Pacino half Friedkin, where the contact of being around this world of the clubs and these people get to him when he does have regular sex with his girlfriend Karen Allen. He's changed, sort of subliminally, in how he perceives contact, which is also seen with the character Ted.
It's a little trashy, actually respectable, and a bit better than you might've heard from the initial critical reactions. Cruising isn't any great shakes, but it's almost fun in the depths that Friedkin goes to in giving just that slight turn of the screws to a detective genre piece. It shakes things up just enough to get noticed, for better or worse, as an original work.