The Utter Failure of High Concept

For today’s installment of Bad Movie Friday, we’d like to shred a flick that must’ve seemed so great when William Friedkin pitched it: Cruising, a murder mystery that’s several degrees clumsier than the worst Encyclyopedia Brown shortie.

Now we can see why this got made. The milieu (the gay leather-bar scene) was ultra-edgy at the time, and, hey, Al Pacino doing his Serpico thing. But, alas, the result is pure ham-fisted dullsville, featuring Pacino in full scenery-chewing mode. (Check out his i