Word: friedkins
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HOMOSEXUALS writhe in William Friedkin's sick vision of hell on Christopher St. like hairy, sweaty messengers of Satan, grinding in a torturous dance of violent, evil sex. Come with me, Friedkin beckons, across Christopher St., a tartopped Styx, through a black door marked "private club." Follow me down a stony stairway into a savage den of black leather jackets, tight jeans, shiny boots, studded belts, heaving chests, tank tops, naked torsos, bulging muscles, captain's caps, jock straps, weird tattoos, mirrored sunglasses and gold necklaces strung so tight no one breathes...
...with him. Don't go anywhere Friedkin points his leering, luring camera. Cruising purports to tell the story of a young New York cop, immersed in the frightening S-M-leather world on Christopher St., who confronts his own homosexuality. Instead, it is a look at that world through the crossed eyes of a man who sees homosexuals as masochistic, narcissistic, immature, seemingly crazed men. Friedkin considers homosexuality the wrong, evil side of everyman's sexuality, the sexual demon that must be exorcised for man to return to the normal, clean love of a woman...
...cruises a victim--picks him up--in a hellish bar and they move on to a sleazy hotel. There, the victim admires his sleek, naked body in a mirror, flexing his muscles while the killer, visible in the mirror, lurks in a shadowy corner. The mirror dominates these men, Friedkin implies. They are narcissistic; they love themselves and they love physical replicas of themselves, mirror images...
...with a leather strap, unsheathes a shiny butcher's knife, then plunges it unmercifully into the victim's back. Murderous entry is from behind, the tool is cold, sharp-edged, violent and unrelenting. The victim emits no sound, too shocked by his fate and caught in the grip of Friedkin's version of the S-M homosexual's ultimate pleasure--death...
...film makes good on its ambitions only sporadically. Friedkin is as skilled at capturing the ways of hard-boiled cops as he is at depicting the sweaty haunts of dangerous sex. The film's psychosexual turmoil is heightened still further by the director's linkage of these two milieus: gays cruise in cop costumes, and off-duty cops cruise in S-M drag. Both worlds are inhabited by such fine character actors as Paul Sorvino, Richard Cox and Don Scardino...