In order to avoid an X rating 40 minutes of gay S&M footage was rumored to be cut and destroyed from the 1980 film Cruising. Inspired by the mythology of this controversial film filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews collaborate to imagine their own lost footage. Amid the backdrop of a frenzied film set actor Val Lauren reluctantly agrees to take the lead in the film. Val is repeatedly forced to negotiate his boundaries during scenes on and off camera as unsimulated gay sex happens around him. The film itself is constructed as a play with boundaries remaining queer in subject and form. As much a film about filmmaking as it is about an exploration of sexual and creative freedom Interior. Leather Bar. defies easy categorization.
Review
This film promotes itself suggesting it reimagines the 40 minutes excised from the movie Ȭrusing". It is actually a contrived and boring ⊾hind the scenes" making of 10 reimagined minutes from the original movie and as shown I highly doubt they are what Friedkin would have actually filmed.
The reshot Ȭrusing" minutes are provocative and very sexually explicit but they don't make up for the other 50 minutes where we watch the straight actor in the Al Pachino role trying to come to terms with taking on a gaythemed role.
I thought the 60 minutes of this movie would never end.