Cruising, 1980.
Directed by William Friedkin.
Starring Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, and Karen Allen.
SYNOPSIS:
Are you a fan of William Friedkin’s 1980 thriller Cruising? Then you’ll definitely want to grab this new 4K Ultra HD release from Arrow, which features not only a stunning restoration but also three commentary tracks, around six hours worth of bonus features, and a 120-page booklet. I think the film is a mixed bag, but your mileage may vary, of course.
Sometimes a movie doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be when it grows up, such as William Friedkin’s muddled 1980 film, Cruising. It’s one of those movies that lives in a twilight world, not awful but not great (or even good, really) either.
Based on the novel by Gerald Walker, Cruising features Al Pacino as Steve Burns, a detective offered a career-making opportunity to find a serial killer preying on New York City’s gay community. Specifically, said killer is prowling that community’s leather sub-culture, finding victims in bars, peep shows, and other places in lower Manhattan’s West Village.
The assignment given to him by Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) involves going undercover to such an extent that Steve has to rent an apartment and can’t tell his girlfriend, Nancy (Karen Allen), what he’s doing.
The story seems like it will follow Steve’s attempts to find the killer while questioning his own sexual orientation and dealing with the damage done to his relationship with Nancy, but Cruising never really explores any of that in depth. The plot bounces along from one moment to another, and even Steve’s investigation just involves following various leads here and there, rather than taking him on a journey where solving one clue reveals another one and so forth.
Friedkin wrote this one too, so maybe he was reluctant to go too deep into the gay community, since Steve mostly just goes to various clubs and bars. He does strike up a friendship with a gay man who lives in the apartment down the hall, but that relationship doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot. It also doesn’t really go anywhere, even when the man’s boyfriend returns from an out-of-town trip and gets upset at Steve because he thinks the two are involved with each other: they clash and then that’s it.
If you’re a fan of this film, though, you’ll appreciate the amount of care put into this 4K Ultra HD release from Arrow Video, which continues to rival Criterion when it comes to great home video releases. First up is a new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative, which really highlights the grim-and-gritty nature of lower Manhattan during that time period. It’s a solid transfer that looked great on my TV.
You also get a 120-page book that I’m not privy to, since Arrow doesn’t send me retail copies of movies for review, but it sounds like it’s a worthy supplement that’s packed with a bunch of articles and essays, as well as an introduction by Friedkin and an interview with Pacino. I don’t recall any Criterion booklets of that length.
In terms of the on-disc supplements, the 4K Ultra HD platter serves up a new commentary track that consists of several musicians talking about the movie’s soundtrack, which is the only one that features music by the punk band Germs. (Other bands are featured too.) Their drummer, Don Bolles, is one of those musicians in this discussion.
The other two commentary tracks were ported over from previous editions. One is a solo track with Friedkin from 2007 and the other is a 2019 discussion with film critic Mark Kermode. As you’d imagine, there’s a fair amount of overlap between the tracks, but Kermode’s moderation skills pull the discussion into new territory as often as possible.
The first disc also offers a “Heavy Leather” alternate musical score by Pentagram Home Video, who I don’t know much about. However, my understanding is that the music found here was released in 2019 under the title Who’s Here? I’m Here, You’re Here, which is a reference to some of the dialogue from the film.
The 4K Ultra HD platter wraps up with a bunch of deleted scenes, as well as alternate footage and comparisons of scenes with their censored versions, which Friedkin had to do to multiple times to finally get an R rating. You also get a pair of archival featurettes, two trailers, three TV spots, and five photo galleries.
I wouldn’t blame Arrow if they stopped there, but the extras continue on a Blu-ray disc, which doesn’t house a copy of the movie too. (Arrow previously released Cruising on Blu-ray; I don’t have that one, but I assume this is the second disc from that edition.) I won’t list out everything found there, but suffice it to say that you’ll find a little over five hours of additional extras, along with a gallery of production stills.
Yes, I’d say this one doesn’t need another home video release, unless the 40 minutes of footage Friedkin cut surfaces somewhere. He said it was destroyed, and the cut footage found here isn’t anywhere close to 40 minutes, so I imagine this is the end of the line for Cruising on home video.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
