Synopsis
When New York is caught in the grip of a sadistic serial killer who preys on patrons of the city's underground bars, young rookie Steve Burns infiltrates the S&M subculture to try and lure him out of the shadows.
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Cast
- Al PacinoSteve Burns
- Paul SorvinoCapt. Edelson
- Karen AllenNancy Gates
- Richard CoxStuart Richards
- Don ScardinoTed Bailey
- Joe SpinellPatrolman DiSimone
- Jay AcovoneSkip Lee
- Gene DavisDaVinci
- Randy JurgensenDet. Lefransky
- Barton HeymanDr. Rifkin
Recommendations
- 88
Slant Magazine
Its truly unnerving quality is that its existence is a brutal reminder from the past that homosexuality is not heterosexuality, and that any attempt to reconcile the difference will only breed resentment, confusion, and violence. Or perhaps it will only lead to more lame Hallmark movies of the week like Brokeback Mountain. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
One of the most original thrillers of the 1980s. It's a lurid, twisted film that brings you into its world and completely works you over. - 63
Chicago Sun-Times
Here's a movie that's well visualized, that does a riveting job of exploring an authentic subculture, that has a fairly high level of genuine suspense from beginning to end. . and that then seems to make a conscious decision not to declare itself on its central subject. What does Friedkin finally think his movie is about? - 50
The A.V. Club
In its shameless excavation and exploitation of the killer-queen archetype–the homosexual so riddled with self-loathing and guilt that they feel an insatiable urge to kill and punish others–the film is bad politics and dodgy, flawed filmmaking, but it's weirdly resonant and thoroughly haunting all the same. - 42
IndieWire
Recouping this one amounts to nothing more than taking part in a Friedkin vanity project. Cruising has been freshly dug up for a new generation of luckily clueless viewers; but, as we know, children shouldn’t play with dead things. - 30
Time Out
The structure continues to loosen, and although Friedkin - like Coppola - has always had difficulty with endings, this one is so arbitrary it's as if he just gave up. - 30
Austin Chronicle
Cruising is more of an exploitation effort as opposed to a genuine mind-bender. The film concentrates on the gay underground in New York City, although Friedkin's take on a sexually charged mystery is more funny than challenging - 30
Chicago Reader
What's left is the framework for a graphic, brutal, sickening film (1980), without the violent effects that might have made sense (however illegitimate) out of the conception. Like The Exorcist, it alternates five minutes of shock with ten minutes of dull exposition, plenty of time to watch Al Pacino wrestle with his miserably conceived character.
