A real end of the 70s movie - writers often can't resist the synergy of Sorcerer coming out the same time as Star Wars but William Friedkin still had enough cache to make this with what I assume was pretty much total freedom. Like Sorcerer its reputation continues to rise.
This copped it at the time because it was about a gay serial killer and there weren't many gay characters on screen. In recent years it's been more appreciated as a period piece and people seem less touchy about the subject matter - possibly because it's a period piece, that time has passed... but also because there are a lot more gay characters on screen now. (Not saying things still don't have a way to go, just pointing out it's more than it was.)
It's a remarkably frank piece with cop Al Pacino going undercover in leather bars to find a serial killer. The scenes in bars are quite full on - not the nice dancing in Police Academy films but lots of sex,people standing around watching others having sex, rock and roll dancing, drugs. It's a sealed world- indeed one of the club managers instantly spots Pacino for a cop and tells him to leave! But by the end of the film he's got his act down pat - he seems to know exactly what to say. You can read this film a number of ways - one of those ways is a heroes journey where Pacino learns how to have sex with guys.
It doesn't spell out that he has sex with guys but it is implied. It affects his sex life with Karen Allen, he seems to know all the lingo at the end, when the police come in to rescue him he's all tied up and tells the cops that they're too soon.
It's a confronting film in a lot of ways. We get to spend a little time with some of the victims before they're killed, so we get to know and like them, and are with them as they get killed, which isn't fun.
There's lots of loose ends which I know Friedkin will say are deliberately ambiguous but personally I think is just sloppy screenwriting from someone who wasn't a professional screenwriter - they don't resolve the cops who force gays to have sex with them (Paul Sorvino just finds out the gays are telling the truth), they don't resolve if there's another serial killer, or explain who that tall black man in a thong is who comes in during the interrogation (apparently the cops would do that to make any complaint about police brutality seem silly - why not include a line to cover that?). There are hints of Pacino having a poor relationship with his dad which aren't chased up. Pacino learns the saying of the killer "I'm here you're here" even though it was misheard by others and we never find out why.
Pacino is frustratingly passive a lot of the time. He spends a lot of time hanging out, not really doing much detecting. The big breakthrough - the fingerprint on a movie machine - comes through other cops. He spends a lot of time chasing a suspect who we know isn't the killer because he doesn't look like the person who the killer is - because we've seen enough of the killer. I get this happens in investigations it just feels like a waste of time to watch. He does some detecting at the end but that seems to be mostly stalking this guy and breaking into his apartment.
One friend thought the ending implied that the evil spirit of the killer might have passed in Pacino, like The Exorcist - which does make sense, even though it's not clear, but is a case of a filmmaker ripping off their own successful work.
Personally I don't think he's the serial killer at the end. Why would he kill the playwright? The playwright was his friend - serial killers tend not to kill their friends. Also the playwright was a different look to the other victims. And the boyfriend does have a good motivation.
I did like the depiction of the homophobia of the time - matter of fact and horrible: cops coercing drag queens into performing sex acts, serial killers of gay men only getting eight years, cops beating up a gay to get a confession.
Some excellent performances, including Pacino, Paul Sorvino as a cop (interesting limp), James Remar as a flamboyant dancer (he's good!), Ed O'Neil. Powers Boothe pops up with a funny scene as a salesman.
An interesting, challenging film.
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