10 "Controversial" Movies That Didn't Deserve All The Hype

10. Cruising

The controversy: Director William Friedkin added a disclaimer to his film, about a cop (Al Pacino) going undercover in New York's gay scene to flush out a serial killer targeting homosexuals, that went like this: "This film is not intended as an indictment of the homosexual world. It is set in one small segment of that world, which is not meant to be representative of the whole." That didn't stop NYC's gay community protesting the film and trying its best to disrupt filming from the get-go. The reality: Cruising is a disturbing, cold, remarkably directed and ultimately uninvolving anti-thriller featuring an unsettlingly ghost-like Al Pacino that got more press than it ever deserved. The film doesn't seem to understand the culture it explores - so it's misguided, yes, but offensive? That would be thinking too little - or perhaps too much - of a director whose primary concern has only ever been to create an atmosphere and make his films thrilling for the audience. That the atmosphere of dread is applied to New York's underground gay scene on Cruising shouldn't suggest William Friedkin is casting a suspicious, perhaps homophobic eye on gay people, more that he's trying to apply horror-tinged thriller elements to the setting as he almost always has done.