Word: schrader
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...production notes for this film say that Paul Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, where Hardcore's modest, acutely observed opening sequences are set. They also tell us he was raised in the stern Calvinist tradition that sustains the heroic father figure (George C. Scott) as he searches for his runaway teen-age daughter. The girl has disappeared into the demimonde of pornographic film production in California, with its attendant agonies of drug addiction and prostitution. Schrader's feeling for the small-town society and values of his youth is respectful, never patronizing. There is an authenticity...
...Schrader is making an attempt to redeem an American heroic myth. He is trying to say that in the simple perceptions of unsophisticated people there are a strength and decency too often underestimated by media pundits who have lost touch with the values by which most of America still lives. When we see Scott's anguish as he witnesses a porno film starring his daughter, then watch him plunge bravely into that awful and degrading world searching for his child, we cannot help being moved...
...precisely here that the film begins to go wrong. There can be no doubt that Schrader has earnestly studied the porno underworld and that he is genuinely appalled by what he found. But tie does not know it in his bones, as he does that other world. The lighting is wild, when it is not harsh, the better to illuminate wasted faces. The dialogue is sometimes tough, sometimes fantastical. People struggle to express their pathetic rationalizations for what they are doing and their equally pathetic dreams of escape. But Schrader never seems to get beyond his own shock; he keeps...
...hide even that. Somewhat inconsistently, Scott begins to play detective. From a solid, straightforward honest man, he becomes a wily man of the streets, able to manipulate and deceive others. He has help from a young prostitute (Season Hubley) he picks up as a partner (this is all platonic--Schrader couldn't deal with Scott's sexual drive so he hides it). Led by Nikky, Scott beats pimps and thugs to a pulp, who then graciously give him straight tips. Scott's quest becomes less urgent and more professional as it continues. The outraged moral stance of the Midwestern family...
...When Schrader wrote the screenplay for Taxi Driver, he managed to create a tension between the hard core or 'new morality' and the religious ferocity of the old morality within the character of Travis Bickle. In Hardcore, Schrader relies on the obvious: Grand Rapids family life and California street life confront one another on the screen. His device is too simple, and the extreme images have no force. The director's lack of involvement with the film lowers it to the level of a porn film. Schrader uses a classic box-office formula--a little sex and scandal combined with...