William Friedkin didn’t do "safe." If you look at his track record before 1980, he was the guy who made people faint in theaters with The Exorcist and redefined the car chase in The French Connection. So, when he decided to adapt Gerald Walker’s novel about a serial killer targeting gay men in New York’s leather subculture, everyone knew it was going to be intense. But nobody quite predicted the chaos. The Cruising Al Pacino movie remains one of the most polarizing artifacts of American cinema, a film that was protested before it even finished shooting and continues to be debated by film historians and queer theorists decades later.
Honestly, it’s a weird watch.
Pacino plays Steve Burns, a young beat cop who looks like he’s just trying to keep his head above water. His boss, played by a cold Paul Sorvino, sends him undercover into the meatpacking district's underground S&M clubs. The mission? Find a killer who picks up men, takes them to cheap hotels, and stabs them to death.
The Protest That Almost Shut Down Production
You have to understand the climate of 1979 New York to get why people were so angry. The LGBTQ+ community was already dealing with constant police harassment and a lack of protection from the state. Then comes Friedkin, a straight director, filming a movie that many felt equated homosexuality with violence and pathology.
Activists like Arthur Bell from The Village Voice basically sounded the alarm. They encouraged people to disrupt the filming. And they did. People stood on rooftops with mirrors to ruin the lighting. They blasted air horns during takes. They threw water. Pacino has talked about this in later years—how he felt the tension on the street was more palpable than anything in the script. It’s a miracle the movie even got finished.
What Was the Movie Actually Trying to Say?
It’s easy to call Cruising homophobic, and many did. But if you look closer, it’s also a movie about the disintegration of identity. Pacino’s character doesn’t just "play" the part; he starts to lose himself in the leather, the poppers, and the darkness.
The film is famously ambiguous. By the time we get to the ending—which I won’t spoil if you haven't seen it, though it’s forty-odd years old—the lines between the hunter and the hunted are totally blurred. Friedkin reportedly cut about 40 minutes of footage to get an R rating from the MPAA. Rumors have circulated for years that the missing footage contained more explicit sexual content and perhaps a clearer explanation of the plot. Without it, the movie feels like a fever dream. It’s grainy. It’s loud. It smells like sweat and diesel fuel through the screen.
Pacino at His Most Internal
This isn't Scarface. There’s no "Say hello to my little friend" energy here. In the Cruising Al Pacino movie, Al is quiet. He’s observant. He uses his eyes more than his voice. It’s one of his most underrated performances because he has to play a man who is slowly being hollowed out by his environment.
Think about the physical transformation. At the start, Steve Burns is a "normal" guy with a girlfriend (played by Karen Allen). By the end, he's wearing a leather jacket like a second skin, his gait has changed, and his eyes look haunted. It’s a masterclass in subtlety from an actor who usually leans into the operatic.
The Real-Life Inspiration: The Bag Murders
Friedkin didn't pull this stuff out of thin air. He was partially inspired by a series of real-life killings in the mid-70s. There was a guy named Paul Bateson, a radiographer who actually appeared as an extra in The Exorcist. Bateson was later convicted of murdering a film critic, but he was also a suspect in the "bag murders"—a series of killings where dismembered bodies were found in bags in the Hudson River.
Friedkin actually visited Bateson in prison while preparing for the film. That’s the kind of grim realism he was chasing. He wanted the clubs to feel real, so he used actual patrons of legendary spots like The Anvil and Mine Shaft as extras. When you see those background shots, you aren't looking at Hollywood actors in costumes. You’re looking at the real New York leather scene of 1979.
Why the Movie is Being Re-evaluated
For a long time, Cruising was a pariah. It was the movie Pacino didn't like to talk about. It was the movie that got Friedkin labeled as a reactionary. But in the last 15 years, something shifted.
Modern queer filmmakers and critics have started to look at it as a time capsule. It captures a specific, grimy, pre-AIDS New York that doesn't exist anymore. James Franco even made a project called Interior. Leather Bar. that tried to "re-imagine" the 40 minutes of lost footage. People began to see that the movie wasn't necessarily saying "gay people are killers," but rather "this specific, repressed, violent world can break a person’s psyche."
The ambiguity is now seen as a strength. In 1980, audiences wanted a clear "who dunnit." In 2026, we’re more comfortable with the idea that a movie can be an atmospheric tone poem where the ending is a question mark rather than a period.
Technical Mastery and Sound Design
One thing that doesn’t get enough credit is the sound. The movie is incredibly noisy. You have the constant thrum of the city, the pounding industrial music in the clubs, and the unsettling silence of the park at night. It’s designed to make you feel claustrophobic.
Friedkin used a lot of handheld camera work, which was still relatively gritty for a major studio release at the time. It gives the film a documentary feel that makes the violence even more jarring. It’s not "movie violence." It’s quick, messy, and cold.
The Controversy’s Lasting Impact
The protests against the Cruising Al Pacino movie actually changed how Hollywood interacted with minority groups. It was one of the first times a community stood up and said, "You can't just use us as a scary backdrop for your thriller."
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Even though the movie is a cult classic now, the wounds it caused were real. Friedkin eventually added a disclaimer to the beginning of the film, stating that the movie didn't represent the entire gay community. Whether that was enough is still a matter of opinion.
How to Approach Watching Cruising Today
If you’re going to watch it for the first time, don't expect a standard police procedural.
- Watch the 2019 Arrow Video restoration. The colors and the sound have been cleaned up significantly, and it looks much closer to what Friedkin originally intended.
- Context is everything. Read up on the 1979 protests before you hit play. Understanding why people were throwing rocks at the camera crew makes the viewing experience much more intense.
- Focus on Pacino’s face. In the final scenes, his expressions tell a story that the script refuses to put into words.
- Listen to the soundtrack. It features tracks by The Germs and Willy DeVille. It’s a perfect snapshot of the late 70s punk/new wave/underground crossover.
Final Takeaways on a Dark Classic
The Cruising Al Pacino movie is a jagged pill. It’s uncomfortable, it’s occasionally confusing, and it’s unapologetically bleak. But it’s also a vital piece of cinema history. It shows an actor at the height of his powers taking a massive risk and a director refusing to blink in the face of immense public pressure.
Whether you find it offensive or a work of misunderstood genius, you can't deny its power. It lingers in your mind like a bad dream you can’t quite shake off. It’s a reminder that movies used to be dangerous.
To truly understand this film, your next step should be seeking out the documentary Friedkin Uncut or reading Pacino’s recent reflections on the era. This wasn't just a job for them; it was an era-defining confrontation with the dark side of New York City.