Interior. Leather Bar.

How this 60 minute piece of drivel ever got made, or was released, is beyond comprehension. It is nothing more than an extremely tedious version of what used to be known as "vanity press". Franco should be ashamed of himself. Why he, his collaborator, and the "actors" in this piece of garbage thought they had anything constructive to say about "rumored" cuts made to a 50-year old film, borders on the incredulous. Anyone can "imagine" what those phantom 40 minutes of sex in a leather bar might actually have shown. I imagine it would be a whole lot less boring and painful to watch than this waste of film (or tape). Anyone who had anything to do with this dreadful enterprise should be forever banned from film-making!

I, too, was expecting something else, but although this is weird, choppy, and appears to have no point on the surface; I like how Franco (please just come out already) casts the point-of-view from the perspective of the straight guy who is new to all this and just got dragged into it and so on. Franco's point (to him, and to the viewer) is just because something (in this case, gay sex) is not only outside your experience, but something you have been programmed to hate, does not necessarily make it so for the people involved, hence the loving gay couple. Basically I got to see it for free on Netflix, an hour of time I could have spent watching the violence he is railing about. I don't mind the hour, would recommend it to somebody who's seen a million movies and willing to try something different. And if you're a little pervy there isn't much, but there is some nice flesh on display here. (check that one butt shot) lol

Went into this expecting to be let down after some of the reviews. I found it far more interesting than expected.

It felt to me a lot more about motivations, fears, attitudes and trust than about sex. Yes there's some glimpses of sex play - that is necessary though, as it forces the other reactions.

It makes you think about your own reactions as well, whether you as the viewer are gay or straight. Do we judge the actors who are involved directly in the sex different to those who aren't? Do we view the gay actors in the project as lesser than the straight actors? Do we still respect those involved in the project or are they in some way artistically devalued. And why is a bit of pleasure between 2 (or more) people seen as worse than all the violence seen on screen in film and TV. Can it still have artistic merit as part of telling a story.

The longest scene featuring sex is outside of the bar, a frankly lovely scene between a real couple. Framed against the discomfort of the lead character (played by Val Lauren), and his fears of how it would affect him, his friendships and relationships, and his own standing as an actor.

One thing to remember is the era when Cruising itself was made. Also the fact the film was received very much as an anti-gay statement as it depicted Pacino as entering some kind of dark underworld of dirty sex (and murder). From the reactions from one of the leads friends in a series of phone calls, you can see that attitude to sex, in particular full-on gay sex, has not totally gone away. Also the fears of the affect on an actor's career.

The only thing that stopped me giving this a 9 is it needed an extra maybe 20 minutes after filming and editing, to explore how people felt after taking part, how James Franco felt, was the project a success and did it achieve what he wanted. However I definitely recommend.

This film promotes itself suggesting it re-imagines the 40 minutes excised from the movie "Crusing". It is actually a contrived and boring "behind the scenes" making of 10 re-imagined minutes from the original movie and, as shown, I highly doubt they are what Friedkin would have actually filmed.

The re-shot "Crusing" 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 gay-themed role.

I thought the 60 minutes of this movie would never end.

I saw this film at the Berlinale film festival 2013, where I felt myself severely misled by the synopsis on the festival website. I saw a lot of meta-talk about cruising, about straight actors playing a gay role, about an actor being advised against getting involved in the project for the sake of his future career, and so on, with emphasis on "meta" and "about". And the bit of sex that was shown, was in a dancing atmosphere and not the traditional dark room. Maybe offensive for straight people but not very explicit, yet the festival website devoted a lot of attention to the revival of scenes deleted for fear for censors. Finally, I completely missed the insight in the film making process that was promised too. In short, an unnecessary film, not even a bit informative about this different universe we know nothing about.