Blu Ray Review: Hardcore
Paul Schrader's powerful drama Hardcore, featuring George C. Scott in one of his many strong performances, has just been released to blu ray by Kino Lorber.
Schrader directs from his own screenplay featuring Scott as a devoutly religious Michigan businessman whose daughter flees a church outing. Believing she has been kidnapped, he hires an oddball private investigator who, after a years-long search, comes up with an 8mm stag film in which the daughter is participating. Insiting that she has been brainwashed into performing in these films, the father takes over the investigation himself, poses as a porn producer, and enters the seamy underbelly of the stag film industry to rescue his daughter and bring the culprits to justice.
Schrader was coming off having written and directed the film Blue Collar, and was still being lauded for penning the screenplay for Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver. Exploring his own Calvanist roots for the father's deep religious convictions, the story shapes this character effectively. Interestingly, it was Warren Beatty who was originally cast in the lead, but he wanted to script changed to having his character's girlfriend as the victim, believing he was too young to have a teenage daughter. Beatty left the project and George C. Scott was hired, making the concept of the film more efferctive.
Shocking for its time, and consistently compelling, the film boasts a supporting cast that includes Peter Boyle as the private investigator, Season Hubley as a helpful prostitute, and Dick Sargent, trying to break away from his Darren Stephens TV typecasting as the Scott character's brother-in-law.
There is a lot to Hardcore, in its dealing with edgy subjects like S&M and snuff films, that remains shocking as late as the 21st century, but it is balanced by the soul searching relationship between the Scott and Hubley characters as they connect and confide regarding their different perpsectives, both cultural and spiritual.
The Kino blu ray includes a commentary track by Paul Schrader and another by film historians Eddy Friedfeld, Lee Pfeiffer and Paul Scrabo. These tracks are fascinating in their discussion of the film and its various details.
The Kino blu ray is available for purchase at this link: HARDCORE