The Michigan Daily-Sunday, February 24, 1980-PageS m Sd And New reams s a U MO WS UN MA RCliisf MiiOAN S C100 lYEE ____ CHARIUE HADE / BLACKWELL Tickets/$6 in advance ON SALE NOW/MICHUNION B.O- For-more information/ 763-2071 'Cruising' is rigid thriller NOTETHE Subtle Contrast Dept.: In William Friedkin's controversial film (Al Pacino) has food clean fun with his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen), and Cruising, scenes dealing with the hetersexuil, "normal" world are bathed in by night poses as a gay leather freak in an attempt to bait and capture a sunlight, while sequences depicting New York City's gay community are psychopathic killer of N.Y.C. homosexuals. shot to look like some sort of modern Sodom. Above, policeman Steve Burns A SEXLESS ANTI-GA Y HORR OR FILM THE O"ICS OIL MAJOR uvluTS PRElNTS AN BVIN/NO W TN CHUCK ilam Fredkin's' By DENNIS HARVEY William Friedkin's Curising is prob- ably the most thoroughly asexual movie dealing with sexuality ever made. It's most disturbing not as a Hollywood homophobic statement, but *as an indication of how abnormally chilly the tastes of director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) have become. The movie examines the N.Y.C. S & M leather scene (which an obviously tacked-on written prologue defensively labels as being "far from the mainstream of gay life") and about a half-dozen horrifically gory murders with the sort of attitude that the computer HAL of 2001 might have had-with a totally' frigid, vaguely destructive air of grimly satisfied voyeurism. Cruising would be offensive and harmful enough if it were a simple heterosexual swipe at homosexuality, but what makes it an even more uneasy experience is the fact that Friedkin obviously doesn't care about anyone. There's an extremely sinister edge to his dark vision; watching the film, the viewer is likely to learn far more upsetting things about the director's mentality than about the movie s fictional killer. THE STORYLINE is based very vaguely on several actual homocide cases stretching over seventeen years. Al Pacino plays Steve Burns, a New York City police officer who is asked by Capt. Edelson (Paul Sorvino) to. volunteer for a remarkably risky undercover assignment: submerging himself in the local leather scene in order to act as bait for a murderer who has already caused the grisly demise of several gay bar pick-ups. Burns greets this offer with'an abrupt "I love it" and accepts the mission without further questions. This is only the first of the movie's many careless ambiguities: why in the first place does Burns take on such a dangerous case with scant police protection, especially when he seems to have such a pokey and oblivious attitude toward gays? If the lure of being promoted to the detective division is enough to prompt this enthusiasm, then Pacino's muddled, monolithic performance doesn't carry the point well. Burns takes on an alias, moves out of his girlfriend's (Karen Allen) apartment, and moves into a shabby flat in a predominantly gay district. He develops a sympathetic relationship with neighbor Ted Bailey (Don Scardino), cruises the leather bars incessantly at night, and gradually closes in-on the identity of the killer, a college student named Stuart Richards (Richard Cox) whose motivations are even more obscure than the police officer's. In the production notes for Cruising, actor Cox attempts to find a foggy rationale for the ambiguity of his character: "I see Stuart as never having been homosexual, but in my readings and research on him (which included material on Son of Sam and Ted Bundy), I came to the conclusion that these things just aren't able to be analyzed, these killers all have an inexplicable quality." Is this meant to excuse the fact that Friedkin apparently lacked the imagination or nerve to provide any kind of reason for the murderer's violent drives (there's some vague hinting about a parental complex, but it's so badly done that it merely confuses the issue further), so he left the entire character a blank? Cruising is so full of narrative and psychological holes that only its brutality keeps it from sinking A lot of the questions that unanswered seem to have beer into a state of confusion director's anxiety during pro obviously the pressure from ga during the filming necessitat watering-down, but Friedkin attempt to resolve what m originally been anti-homosex devices in ~different ways. leaves them unexplained, shr an air of murky uncertainty. V quite grasp whether Richard with any of his victims, wheth has sex with the men he picks the police officer's relationship girlfriend is so gloomily dragg by his contact with the gay con why Burns suddenly appears fallen in love with his neighi why it's so easy for Burns to bi the killer's room in broad dayli the outside, what the killer's d relationship with his father v most of the policemen in the fi more anti-female ("They scumbags") than the gays, etc THE FINAL ten minutes of in which a new murder victim long after the murderer h caught, is an act of desperatior to rcover all the bases an reaching any controversial cot by merely throwing a bla ambiguity over everythinj Friedkin could be expected to movie about murder homosexuals with a fake-mys Cruising entirely. that would be more suited to an are left Excorist III. n thrown The film is crudely assembled and by the often clumsy (as in the villain's Rod duction: Serling echo-chambered voice, his mad y groups internal laughter and the stilted ed some dialogue), but it has the raw, negative doesn't charge of the director's most popular ay have previous work. The French Connection ual plot was a fairly good, physical police story He just witbi a fine kinetic chase scene, thought ouded in its winning of the best picture Oscar has sex was ridiculously generous. The eraBurnx Excorist was a technically ingenious ier Burns labor, but one turned silly by its own up, why determined solemnity and with his humorlessness; it was finally just an ;ed down elaborate freak show, without the nmunity, sympathy toward its characters that to have might have made us believe in all the bor Ted, trickery. reak into NEITHER OF those films betray any ght from genuine emotion. They're cold and listurbed mechanical, bent on relentlessly and vas, why joylessly testing the audience's lm seem spine-and since audiences have y're all always gotten a perverse sense of . pleasure out of having their tolerance the film, stretched to the breaking point, both is found were tremendous successes. They gave as been Friedkin the standing of a major Si i 4.ries -!y~ -,l4. 2 l4~* 9 IOt 0 r '7 II I . I Ti~ Ii *1~ In. ,I n; it tries d avoid nclusions anket of g. Only afinish a among ;tic twist See CRUISING, Page 7 LE: Popular Organizations and Non-Violent Movements David Molmeaux American Friends Service Committee Representative in Santiago, Chile MON., FEB. 25-8:00 PM Friend's Meetinghouse 1420 Hill St. Tues., Feb. 26 noon-lunch U of M International Center, Madison Ave. - _ S- "4S THE Alaskan King Crab SONLY $795 EDIBL T Alaskan King Crab Leg Dinner A Served with a crisp green salad, vegetable ~ *~,** bead and your choice of baked potato French fr^es, or long grain and wld rice . -' rMAIINY I:" ibN I .. . . .:: . 2.2..4... 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