Cruising

Variety by

Like any approach to the bizarre, it is fascinating for about 15 minutes. In many respects, Cruising [from the novel by Gerald Walker] resembles the worst of the ‘hippie’ films of the 1960s. 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.

Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr

What's left is the framework for a graphic, brutal, sickening film (1980), without the violent effects that might have made sense (however illegitimate) out of the conception. Like The Exorcist, it alternates five minutes of shock with ten minutes of dull exposition, plenty of time to watch Al Pacino wrestle with his miserably conceived character.

Slant Magazine by Eric Henderson

Its truly unnerving quality is that its existence is a brutal reminder from the past that homosexuality is not heterosexuality, and that any attempt to reconcile the difference will only breed resentment, confusion, and violence. Or perhaps it will only lead to more lame Hallmark movies of the week like Brokeback Mountain.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

One of the most original thrillers of the 1980s. It's a lurid, twisted film that brings you into its world and completely works you over.

The A.V. Club by Nathan Rabin

In its shameless excavation and exploitation of the killer-queen archetype–the homosexual so riddled with self-loathing and guilt that they feel an insatiable urge to kill and punish others–the film is bad politics and dodgy, flawed filmmaking, but it's weirdly resonant and thoroughly haunting all the same.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Here's a movie that's well visualized, that does a riveting job of exploring an authentic subculture, that has a fairly high level of genuine suspense from beginning to end. . and that then seems to make a conscious decision not to declare itself on its central subject. What does Friedkin finally think his movie is about?