Verdict
Summary
The movie turns into a bit of a thriller, which is fine, and I could believe Scott’s transformation from straight-laced Christian to midnight avenger who has experienced a lot of sin in his quest, and while the movie has a sensational aspect, it’s better than Joel Schumacher’s more grungy but unbelievable (and remarkably similar) 8mm, which came later. Schrader made what is essentially a detective thriller here with Hardcore, and modern audiences should appreciate its exploration of faith, sin, and redemption.
Plot:
A strict Midwestern Christian businessman sends his daughter on a mission trip to Los Angeles where she disappears into the seedy sex industry.
Review:
The day after Christmas, Midwestern Christian businessman Jake VanDorn (George C. Scott) says goodbye to his teenaged daughter Kristen (Ilah Davis), an innocent girl who is about to embark on a journey she’ll be forever changed from. The idea is that Jake – along with a whole bunch of other local Calvinists – will be sending their kids on a mission trip to a Los Angeles church where they can minister to downtrodden neighborhoods and do some kind of outreach, but after a few weeks Kristen disappears at Knotts Berry Farm and never rejoins the group. Jake is informed, and he flies to Los Angeles where the police don’t offer him any help at all, and so he hires an expensive private detective named Andy (Peter Boyle) to investigate. After a while, Andy somehow gets ahold of an 8mm film that shows Kristen in a very low rent pornographic production, and while it devastates Jake, he asks Andy to keep digging to find out who made the film and who was in it along with his daughter. The request is next to impossible to deliver: The porn and sex industry is vast, deep, and dark, and as Andy digs, he falls prey to its seductions and its perks, which infuriates Jake, who fires him. Jake takes the initiative at that point and goes undercover as a scuzzy porn producer and tries immersing himself in the underground porn world, which begins taxing his spirit and compromising his morals. He ends up getting a few leads, and with the help of a hooker who sometimes works as a pornographic performer (played by Season Hubley), he gets closer and closer to what he hopes will be his daughter, but the closer he gets, the more dangerous things become. He stumbles into an even darker sex world where snuff films are being produced and shown to a very select few, and when he realizes that his daughter is connected to these snuff filmmakers, he also realizes that the clock is ticking precious moments away where he may never get to salvage his daughter if he doesn’t find her soon.
For many years I dreaded watching Paul Schrader’s Hardcore because I thought it would crush me. I’m glad I waited until now, well into my ’40s to watch it because I’m a parent now, and my cinematic sensibilities have changed quite a bit over time. I really got into it and could relate to Scott’s character, and while the film amps up the sleaze and seedy element sometimes for shock value, it likely played down the reality in a lot of ways. The movie turns into a bit of a thriller, which is fine, and I could believe Scott’s transformation from straight-laced Christian to midnight avenger who has experienced a lot of sin in his quest, and while the movie has a sensational aspect, it’s better than Joel Schumacher’s more grungy but unbelievable (and remarkably similar) 8mm, which came later. Schrader made what is essentially a detective thriller here with Hardcore, and modern audiences should appreciate its exploration of faith, sin, and redemption.
Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray of Hardcore is presented in a nice crisp high definition transfer, with an audio commentary by Schrader, plus another commentary by three film historians, and the trailer. The Blu-ray also comes with a reversible sleeve and a slipcover.
