The Worst Film Ever

Simply Perfect

best movie i've ever seen.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

When a serial killer is targeting New York's homosexual population, it's up to one cop to stop the madman. The film's murder scenes are extremely graphic with blood galore as characters are slaughtered with unflinching cruelty. Little is left to the imagination as the viewer is subjected to these violent acts. Not for the squeamish or fainthearted (I was even repulsed and I can usually handle gory moments). Also note the film has graphic nudity and is not for sensitive viewers (again I was taken aback).The acting is limited in the film as it relies heavily on natural atmosphere and less than on spoken dialogue. Al Pacino manages to pull off a decent performance as undercover officer Steve Burns, who is tasked with finding the sadistic murderer. Pacino is mostly silent as he skulks through New York's seedy underbelly. This movie is more of a one-time viewing unless this appeals to your taste more than mine.

So was Cruising supposed to be a thriller? Or was it about one man's gradual "descent" into a subculture which is looked down upon by society and the police department that employs him? Friedkin has a tough job on hand - he is making a thriller, so the film needs the thrills and the twists. But he is also making a film about a cop who is gradually attracted to the lifestyle of the people he is spying on. Friedkin does not do a good job handling these two aspects of the film or stringing them together. In the end, Cruising is neither a great thriller not a great character study.I really wanted to like this movie. I was waiting for the enthralling scenes where Pacino turned it on. But instead you have many scenes with Pacino casually walking into an underground gay bar and looking around at the debauchery going on around him. It is almost like Friedkin is saying - look, this is all so provocative. But the blatant scenes of debauchery leave you cold rather than shocked. Friedkin did such a great job gradually building up the changes in Regan's personality as she is taken over by Demon Pasusu in The Exorcist. But there is none of that ingenuity in Cruising. A bit of subtlety would have helped the movie. Instead, you are hit on the head with all the gay sex scenes. The hard rock music played during the scenes in the bar are cheesy. And so are the actors who play the gay men taking part in the debauchery.Also, Pacino is introduced a good fifteen minutes into the film. We know nothing about him. Is he a conservative cop? Does he dislike gay people? We are told literally nothing about this character.The scenes which indicate Pacino's increasing attraction to the S&M scenes are few and far between. They are quite flimsy as well. The ambiguous ending was a bit hard to believe. There is nothing that came before the ending that adds any weight to the ambiguity.Sorvino and Pacino seemed to be sleepwalking through their roles. Pacino is really good in some of the scenes (like the one where is dancing with a patron at the bar. That was intense.). But he is nowhere as intense as he is in Serpico. The scene with Powers Boothe was quite funny. But another one where Pacino is told off by a patron at the bar came across as trite.We do get a good look around New York. The film made me wonder what it would have been like to live in a great city like that in the 70s and 80s. A city that gave the opportunity to a man to become whatever he wanted to be.Norman Mailer wrote (in Tough Guys Don't Dance) that people become cops to escape the criminal or deviant inside them. I guess Pacino's character in the movie confirms to this view.

"Cruising" has William Friedkin directing Al Pacino as an undercover cop who immerses himself in New York City's underground gay S&M subculture in order to track a killer who is filleting gay men across Manhattan. Infamously protested by the gay community upon its release, "Cruising" is upfront and unyielding in its depiction of the leather subculture; Friedkin does not shy away from depicting raw sexuality anymore than he does candid violence, and it's no surprise that a film like this caused such an uproar in 1980. Opinions on the film are myriad and vary from interpreter to interpreter, and it's perhaps one of the most frustrating thrillers of all time because there are so many different ways in which we can make sense of it. Friedkin toys with the audience deliberately by employing various actors as the sinister killer, which in effect puts a damper on the murder-mystery plot arc and forces the audience to focus on the bigger picture— the devil is not in the details here.The film has been interpreted as an admonishment of gay S&M subculture, a prescient metaphor for AIDS, and an exploration of sexual repression and the ways in which that bubbles into violence. My theory on the film is more in line with the latter, and I find it impossible to take any definitive stance on the crosspatch of possibilities that Friedkin leaves us with in regard to "who" the killer really is— the fact remains that there is really no way way to make sense of it no matter how we attempt to piece it together. There is no resolve. Ultimately, all that we are left with is a series of senseless and vicious murders in an underground culture of men on the fringes of society. The cinematography shines here, and is perhaps the film's strongest suit amidst a narrative that irritatingly closes in on itself over and over again. "Cruising" is a photographic masterpiece full of phenomenal compositions, haunting murder scenes, and a very astute capturing of subculture, sex, and the nightlife of New York City. Friedkin's signature grit is in every frame, and combined with the borderline-nihilistic narrative, the final product is graphic and almost depressing. Al Pacino turns in a strong performance that is as ambiguous as the material itself, with a supporting cast portraying everyone from closet-case patrol officers to sassy drag queens and innocent abused lovers. All in all, while "Cruising" is perhaps one of the most ambiguous thrillers I've ever seen, I still feel it is culturally and social relevant, and worth seeing if for nothing more than the cinematography and the genius compositions on display. It's disheartening, disturbing, and offers us no answers, leaving us in a circular state of confusion; a who-dun-it without the dun-it. In the end, all I can definitively say about it is that "Cruising" shows us that the potential for violence bubbles underneath the surfaces of us all, and repression of any kind is ostensibly more dangerous than a knife itself. 8/10.

Al Pacino, one of the greatest talent in Hollywood and gave us many memorable movies and with William Friedkin as the captain of the ship the expectation rises even higher. The story starts in with a serial killer who kills only gay guys with the same kind of appearance. This leads pressure to the police department who hires Al Pacino, an normal cop to go undercover and catch the bad guy. But Al Pacino himself gets more involves physically and mentally into his disguise. The storyline is decent but its main flaw is the screenplay. We get to see a similar kind of scenes about 3 to 4 times. And the serial killers character is undeveloped. This is one of the most worst crime thriller that i've had ever watched, everyone and every scene in this movie moves on a snail pace and there's not even one scene gets me excited. My advice, Just Stay Away!!!!!!!!