Cruising (DVD)

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Third, "Cruising" should be a good murder mystery, but it's not. The story develops no suspense and no conflict. Despite flaunting the hideous details of each of the crimes, the film moves along at a sluggish pace, never building up much momentum or creating much tension. When Burns finally starts losing control, we're never sure why. It's like the plot just runs out of what little steam it has going. Then we get an abrupt and ambiguous conclusion that adds little to our misunderstanding of anything that went before. The real killer is AIDS, but that would come later.

The New York location shooting does makes the movie look more realistic, but to what end when the content is so blatantly repellant? The movie dwells on one of the most unsavory elements of human conduct--murder--and, unfortunately, the gay subculture gets caught up in the mix. Ultimately, "Cruising" is no ordinary serial-killer movie, Burns is no ordinary undercover cop, and the movie itself is no ordinary police procedural. If only it were.

Video:
The WB engineers remastered both the picture and the sound to make it as good as or better than it was when it first appeared in theaters. The results are generally pleasing, although I rather suspect that the filmmakers intended for a lot of the film to have a gritty look about it in the first place. The film's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio fills out a 16x9 television screen, and the high-bit-rate, anamorphic transfer ensures that you see everything the filmmakers intended you to see. This includes bright colors and reasonably good definition. However, the colors are not entirely natural, often intentionally geared to the bluish range, the overall tone is a bit dark, and the picture's grain can give it more than just a gritty appearance on occasion; it can look downright rough.

Audio:
The audio engineers remastered the sound in Dolby Digital 5.1 so that it would seem more like a modern motion picture soundtrack. Certainly, the sonics are finely etched and the highs are excellent, with various subtle noises now arriving from the surround speakers. Note, too, though, that the upper midrange seems a bit sharp and pinched at times, and voices can be a tad hollow and nasal.

Extras:
There are two major bonus items on the disc. The first is an audio commentary by director Friedkin, in which he spends most of his time merely describing the action for us. It seems rather obvious, but, then, maybe he had no serious insights into the film, either. The other item is a newly made, forty-three-minute, two-section documentary, "Making Cruising," that you can play together or as separate chapters. The segments are "The History of Cruising" and "Exorcising Cruising." For the most part, they appear to repeat much of what Friedkin says on the commentary track.

Things conclude with twenty-six scene selections but no chapter insert; a standard-screen theatrical trailer; English and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Shots:
No film starring Al Pacino is without some merit, not the least being a demonstration of his acting skills. But when these acting skills serve so little purpose, as in "Cruising," the result is still less than satisfactory. As I say, director Friedkin mentions on the commentary track that "Cruising" is about transformations in people, changes presumably everyone goes through; yet the only person who experiences any new feelings in this film is Pacino's character, and these so-called changes are uncertain at best. What we see in the movie's crime scenes are the worst, most distasteful aspects of human behavior, and what we see in the gay bar scenes is but a marginal fraction of gay life. The film comes off as little more than a sensationalized exploitation flick.

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