Cruising

Directed by William Friedkin, Cruising follows ambitious police officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) as he agrees to go undercover in New York City’s gay S&M underworld to catch a serial killer. Filmmaker Friedkin delivers an exceedingly hit-and-miss thriller that is, for the most part, more miss than hit, as the picture’s been saddled with a sluggish and disastrously repetitive midsection that holds the viewer at arms length throughout – with the momentum-free atmosphere compounded by Pacino’s far-from-charismatic, curiously subdued work as the less-than-sympathetic central character. And although Friedkin’s unapologetically salacious approach to his own screenplay ensures that the movie’s never boring, exactly, Cruising‘s missed-opportunity vibe becomes more and more difficult to overlook as it lurches from one tedious sequence after another (ie the film’s second act seems to consist solely of Burns’ uncomfortable experiences within a series of increasingly hardcore gay nightclubs). The end result is a palpable misfire that’s certainly aged terribly in the years since its 1980 release, which is a shame, obviously, given the copious talent both in front of and behind the camera.

** out of ****