Hardcore (1979)

Reading the reviews back when this was released, it is fair to say that Hardcore is anything but.

Poor George C. Scott. he's a Middle America, quiet family values man who loses daughter and finds out she has been lured into the underworld of adult porn.

So, George goes under cover in seedy urban areas to find his child. Even when he loses the mid America look and wears the loud "I'm a pervert" shirt, he still looks and feels like Patton. There is no transformation. It becomes comical when he adds the fake mustache and wig.

The on-set tension between Schrader and Scott is palpable. I can just picture George C. Scott screaming " I look like an idiot!!" Scott looks as though he would rather have joined a typing pool for three months than have made this poor excuse for a movie.

Couldn't Schrader have casted someone in 1979 who could make the plausible shift to urban low life? Why does every low life in this movie feel comfortable offering Scott any and all information on where to find his daughter??? He looks like a cop and always looks out of place.

The script is laughable. You never get a sense of either Scott's hometown values or the underbelly of porn. Everything just scratches the surface and the characters are all two dimensional.

Horrible. Schrader's biggest embarrassment.

Fmovies: Hardcore is the mirror image of Boogie Nights. Whereas Boogie Nights the pornography industry is seen from the participant's point of view, Hardcore shows it from the outside. It's not a pretty picture.

Though the film itself doesn't come off in many ways, no question that George C. Scott's performance in the lead is strong dynamic stuff. He's a Midwest businessman of conservative values from Grand Rapids, Michigan whose daughter runs off during a church youth convention out in Southern California.

It would have been very easy to have made Scott's character something of ridicule. This was right around the time of the founding of the Moral Majority and Scott's church seems just the kind to have signed up for that. Instead Scott creates a sympathetic and totally believable character as the father who dominates the film.

In order to accomplish his mission he has to invade a world he hasn't a clue about, but he proves surprisingly resourceful.

Also look for a good performance by Peter Boyle as a private detective who operates on both sides of the moral and immoral.

Hardcore is not a great film, but it's a great performance by George C. Scott.

This is an extremely sordid movie, but one you never forget. I saw it in the theater almost 20 years ago and it was shocking then, so much so that I've only seen it once since and have no desire to see it again. It just left such a bad taste in my mouth.

This is a frightening picture of the pornography business 20 years ago featuring about everything you can think of in that seedy world. Unfortunately, the story centers around finding a girl from a "religious" family and the father, played by George C. Scott, is painted as something of a fanatic. He's portrayed as a cold and violent figure. (Hey, Hollywood isn't going to portray a Christian father as kind and loving.) Yet, Scott is not all that bad because he still is extremely dedicated father who went to all lengths to get his daughter back.

This movie really shows the sleazy side of the entire porno business and, thankfully, it doesn't glamorize any of it. Peter Boyle is good as the detective and Season Hubley is interesting as the prostitute who gives you her ideas on life in the business. This is a fascinating film in parts but also very tough to view in a number of areas. This may sound naive, but when I saw this in 1979, I was stunned that this type of sick-underbelly of a society existed....at least to this degree. I can't imagine what's out there today.

In summary, a very powerful but brutal movie to watch, especially if you have kids of your own.

Hardcore fmovies. ****SPOILERS**** George C. Scott, Jake Van Dorn, gives one of his best acting performances in "Hardcore". It's every bit as good as his role in "Patton" in this modern day version of the great John Ford Western "The Searchers" as the distraught and angry father searching for his missing and runaway daughter Kristen, Llah Davis.

Powerful and riveting film builds up to a fever pitch as Jake goes into the bowels of hell in his desperate and emotional quest for his daughter in the dangerous and sleazily world of the legal as well as illegal porn industry. The scene, in an empty and darkened porno theater, where Jake was shown by private investigator Andy Mast, Peter Boyle, a clip of his daughter preforming sex acts on the screen was so powerful that it made you forget that you were actually watching a movie, not the real thing. An unsuspecting Jake, who had never seen a porno film before, went from bewilderment shock outrage and then became sickened and nauseated by what he saw, all this in just under two minutes of screen time, ranks right up there with the greatest and most unforgettable moments in motion picture history!

Jake ends up finding his daughter but she was emotionally destroyed not only by the porno world that she was living in and was part off but also by her detachment and alienation from her very religious father's feelings for her. Jake is also faced with the fact that the world outside of his small and cloistered community in Grand Rapids Michigan is as different as the Earth is from the planet Pluto.

After Jake's daughter Kristen disappeared from a trip with her classmates and members of the local Dutch Reformation Church Jake with the help of private investigator Andy Mast and local L.A hooker and part time porno actress Niki, Season Hubley, track her down in the red-light district of San Francisco. Jake is then shocked to find out that she left him because of his possessiveness and restrictions that he had on her and the friends that she choose.

Even though the movie "Hardcore" is now a bit dated and the ending is a bit too pat and contrived in order for it to pull all the loose ends in the movie together and give the film a happy ending George C. Scott's Academy Award caliber acting in the film is good enough to make you overlook the movies many faults.

Both Peter Boyle and Llah Davis are also very effective as the hired PI and Jake's missing daughter. I feel that the most sensitive as well as tragic acting in the film, on par with Mr. Scott, was that of Season Hubley, Niki, as the hooker who lead Jake to, in the end, find his daughter. Feeling that she had a chance of, with the help of Jake, leaving the life that she had in the porno world Niki sadly learned in the end of the movie that hope was nothing but a pipe dream. Knowing her helpless situation Niki sadly accepted the reality of her life in it. I feel that Jake's very emotional and truly touching final scene with Niki was far more gripping and heart-wrenching then the final scene that Jake had with his daughter Kristen and almost as good as the scene of Jake in the theater when he broke down from watching Kristen in a porno movie.

Now that George C. Scott has passed away, many of my on-line acquaintances were citing selections from the movie "Patton" as their favorite on-screen quotes from the late actor.

My personal favorite, however, comes from what was the turning point of Scott's character in this movie. I pitied what Jake Van Dorn saw (then couldn't bear to see) as he watched his daughter coupling with the stringy-haired porn actor. Then I pitied him more as he unsuccessfully tried to crash the porn world in search of his only child. Finally, Scott made Van Dorn's final desperation palpable as he sat in the dimly lit motel room, head in his hands (although the toupee WAS hilarious) after "interviewing" the parade of hapless "actors" and "actresses".

When Van Dorn raises his tired eyes to see that the individual who just entered his room is the stringy-haired actor ("Jism Jim"), Scott's acting, the camera flashbacks and the music made me lean very close to the screen. As Van Dorn showed his little girl's picture to Jim, who thereupon throws a tantrum ("That BI***, do I have to act with HER? She made my c*** so...") I found myself very happy to watch Van Dorn beat the stuffing out of Jim with the table lamp.

And the quote? Van Dorn's, in George C. Scott's comforting, whiskey-cured voice as he prepares to shove Jim into a cold shower for some interrogation:

"CHEER UP, YOU'RE NOT DEAD!"

R. I. P. Mr. Scott.

George C. Scott gives one of his best performances as a respected, religious, businessman who sees his daughter off for a church camp and is shocked when she turns up missing. His search leads him to the seedy world of pornography where scummy private detective Peter Boyle finds her in a porno movie. The search leads on as Scott enlists the aid of a hooker.

A moving, powerful look at morality and the wrong turns some of us take - whether we know it or not.

This is a great drama save for an abrupt conclusion (writer/director Paul Shrader also abruptly ended his equally superb "Blue Collar") that is not for those easily offended.