I had always thought Revolution (1985) was Al Pacino's worst film. I realise now I was wrong. It is hard, but I am actually writing a very negative review of a Pacino acted film. It feels heavy to write, but imagine how hard was to sit through the film.

Cruising is one of very few early Pacino films that I haven't seen and I was more than eager to get hold of it. Imagine this; I walked, with my father and brothers into an Indian CD shop, and suddenly saw a collection of videotapes selling cheap (in Malaysia VHS is attaining extinction status). I browsed them, saw Pacino in the cover and grabbed it. It was an old tape looking very eager to jump into a wastebasket. My brother pointed out the condition of the reel (the beginning) which was dirty, degraded and looked unusable. Maybe it was a precursor to what is inside the movie. I assured him that it was only the beginning part, once it is winded, we can get a cleaner reel. I was wrong. Once I got home, I played it, only to have it smear the head of my video player. Now, I had to clean both the player and the tape itself. Ah, the trouble it was costing me. It better be good.

After much effort, I played the tape. Talk about expectations and anticipations! Here you have William Friedkin as the director (The French Connection and the first Exorcist!), Pacino playing a cop and the subject is about a serial killer in gay community. I am a stickler for cop drama and the time this film made was the late seventies (released 1980), the year that I feel is the most important in Hollywood. I pressed the play button and waited.

And I waited and waited and waited. Along the way, I was feeling bored, disgusted and slightly nauseated. The latter being the result of watching endless scenes of guys making love, having sex, and indulging in S&M acts with each other. I realised how much a compulsive heterosexual I was, and I was close in becoming homophobic.

I have never seen Pacino looking so bored on screen in my life. He is the man who is honest, takes pain and of late, enjoys himself immensely on screen. He could make boring movies tolerable (Revolution and Two Bits) and even transform a critic unfriendly movie into a critic friendly one (Carlito's Ways and Sea of Love). But here, he looks like he needed help. He plays an heterosexual cop who goes undercover in the world of S&M gay, and finds himself getting confused, leaning towards this new sexual immersion, and eventually stepping on the shoes of the killer himself. What we see is just someone going through the motion of displaying about three sets of emotion and expression. Pacino? Dare I say this about the great practitioner of Method acting? I had to. I want to be honest.

And what in the name of god has happened to Friedkin. Both The French Connection and Exorcists were groundbreaking films of their respective genres. Here Cruising is supposedly a cousin of the former film. But all we get is some pseudo-documentary depiction of S&M activities that borders on softcore gay pornography and a wannabe art film. What's happening?

When the film came out, it was met with protests and disgusts of the gay community. Reading some of the latter day reviews, some say that it doesn't look that bad now. It does, believe me. It still takes a perverse look at gay community. I got nothing against gays, but if this film represents the actual facet of gays' life, then I am a homophobic. Forget about belief and conviction, the film does not even entertain. It lacks completely in humour, suspense and the longing for action hangs perpetually. The only action you get is zipping and unzipping. This is one movie that'll get zipped for a long time in my memory.