Cruising

Here Steve's 'undercover' status serves as a metaphor for his closetedness (and vice versa) - while murder is committed at the behest of an internalised paternal voice of authority that regards homosexuality as a guilt that must be bloodily expunged.

The principal complaint, artistically, about Cruising is that it is not very clear at the rudimentary level of exposition of character and event. The problem... is in a script that never seems sure enough what it wants to say or prove.

William Friedkin's Cruising is a work of art.

What we're left with is a movie without the courage to declare itself.

This detective melodrama has something to offend almost everyone.

What's left is the framework for a graphic, brutal, sickening film, without the violent effects that might have made sense (however illegitimate) out of the conception.

Both Cruising and The Boys in the Band are deeply flawed but transfixing cinematic representations of gay life at a time before the decimation of a generation of promising young men and the galvanizing of those that miraculously survived.

Seen with hindsight, it’s an interesting (if not necessarily satisfying) film, part sideshow and part art film dive into a subculture... A fascinating artefact but ultimately wanting.

…a mixed bag even for hardened sensation-seekers…it’s hard to argue Cruising is a thoughtful, sensitive view of the NYC gay community&#59; it feels more like a sensationalistic, exploitative take…

...it’s still a very problematic movie nonetheless valuable for its glimpse of a flourishing pre-AIDS fetish milieu.