Cruising 1980

Critics score:
50 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Frank Rich, TIME Magazine: This detective melodrama has something to offend almost everyone. Read more

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: 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. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Its gamy images inside the leather and S&M gay bars along the Greenwich Village waterfront are both busy and dark. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What we're left with is a movie without the courage to declare itself. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: No one would get away with it now, or even try. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's a lurid, twisted film that brings you into its world and completely works you over. Read more

David Pirie, Time Out: Opening with some powerful moments, Cruising soon drifts into bloody Village People-type caricature. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: Taking away the kissing, caressing and a few bloody killings, Friedkin has no story, though picture pretends to be a murder mystery combined with a study of Al Pacino's psychological degradation. Read more

Nathan Lee, Village Voice: Cruising is a mediocre thriller but an amazing time capsule -- a heady, horny flashback to the last gasp of full-blown sexual abandon, and easily the most graphic depiction of gay sex ever seen in a mainstream movie. Read more