Cruising

This picture, written and directed by William Friedkin (who with this one effort may have proved for all-time that he's a talentless bum whose one good picture—The French Connection—was a fluke) and starring--oh god--Al Pacino (Tony, what are ya doin'???) created a big furor and a lot of controversy over the way it appeared to depict gay men. It was boycotted by gay groups, actually picketed, and denounced as unfair and exploitative. Seeing the picture now, I can't help but agree with that analysis. There is no question that the picture is exploitative; it puts us in a voyeuristic position that I, for one, am not all that interested in. I only have one objection to the initial boycott: it shouldn’t have been just boycotted by LGBTQ folks, it should have been boycotted by everyone. Why? Because the picture sucks, that's why. I could put up with the sensationalistic exploitation of heavy leather shenanigans if--and this is a big if--it was in the service of a good, taut story and some fine acting and directing.

As it is, it's a poorly written, senseless, badly directed, and poorly lighted picture, and that's a bad combination. The killer is, of course, a psycho, and the trail that leads to him is so flimsy that Daniel Boone wouldn't be able to follow it. I don’t know what Friedkin's problem is here. Is he a voyeur who gets so caught up in what he's filming that he forgets the basics of moviemaking? Is it titillating? No. Scintillating? No. Sexual proclivities aside, I know a bad movie when I see one. Al Pacino does his usual brooding, sullen routine, but all along I kept wishing he would say, "I am a political prisoner, from Cuba, and I want my fucking human rights, just like the president Jimmy Carter say." If Friedkin was trying for a story of the effects of this world on a straight cop, he failed. In fact, if he was trying for anything other than gay soft porn, he failed. The picture is even laden with an ambiguous (read: senseless) ending. Phooey on you, Bill.