The action of the movie Cruise (Cruise, 2018) takes place in the summer in New York in 1987. A young American of Italian descent, Gio Fortunato (Spencer Boldman), lives carefree and fun: he participates in car races, hangs out with friends, earning a living working in an auto parts store and petty crime. Girls give him attention, and he takes advantage of it. One day he meets Jessica (Emily Ratajkowski), who unexpectedly turns out to be more than a one-night stand for him. But it is not known how serious this is for her, because she is more of a high-class than a middle- and in the fall she will go to college altogether (just like in the Deuce of Spades).
And Gio is ready to offer her his arsenal of entertainment: night rides, eateries in the neighborhood and adrenaline from teenage offenses. He and his friend “work” in a small way: when the heroes of Dragstrip Girl, Heaven’s Burning or Drive steal cars, these are only limited to tape recorders. In the 80s, everyone listens to the 80s, maybe even Italo(!)-disco. At some point, Gio turns on the New Order cassette (sounds Bizarre Love Triangle, 1986). Well, not bad. Well, the guy’s hairstyle and outfit are normal, he looks like a major greaser, wears clean white tishotki and levi’s.
You're my fantasy...
He’s an Italian guy from Whitestone (Queens), she’s a Jewish girl from Long Island. The director tries to emphasize the nationality of his hero. At street races, they wave the Italian flag, and the kid has small Italian boxing gloves dangling in the car. Summer nights, Dax grease, oil cars, a pager, conversations on landline phones and cocaine from an audiotape by Richard Marx.
There are several questions for the translator Dionik, of course, with all my gratitude. What does “rygalovka” have to do with it? if we are talking about a “diner”, a diner. In the context of Gio’s dialogue with the girls in the car, “fuck you” is not “fuck you”, but “fuck you”. And in the diner, a friend asks Gio, “has she come?” By “come”, it means whether she has “finished”. In general, the Russian translation of the title of the film is questionable, the movie is rather called “pokatushki” or “scoundrel” rather than “Cruise” (but something more adequate and simple except as a Cruise does not come to mind). Let’s remember Gene Vincent’s song “Cruisin'”, it’s just about riding around the area in a wheelbarrow.
Despite the fact that there is no rock and roll at all, I liked the movie. It was shot according to the canons of the genre, there are so many comparisons with the classics for a reason. The episode flashes posters for cult films: Rebel Without a Cause, Careless Rider, Rocky Horror Picture Show. Spencer Boldman looks like Ricky Nelson and Matt Dillon at the same time, looks spectacular. Even with some popness, his hero is calm, restrained and acts like a man. Emily is a very beautiful girl, here she is also all so glamorous, but in moderation and she has all the data of the actress. The slogan of the film ’87 Was Heaven…, directed by Robert Siegel himself grew up in New York, and the film captures the youthful biography of Gino Cafarelli, who plays Gio’s father here. And it seems that there’s a reason his mom looks so much like Jessica, the heroine of Ratajkowski. Apparently they really did it.
The yellow car owned by Chris Carbone, Gio's friend, is an 87 Camaro IROC-Z. It's a much more interesting car than the Grand National, but it gets less screen time.
In the film, there is a whole scattering of cars from the eighties from all over the world, including several models from previous decades. The focus is on the Buick Grand National of 86. On the one hand, this is somewhat boring – no other way every director signs a contract stating that every film about the 80s must contain at least one Buick GN. On the other hand, the Grand National has become a real icon of the automotive industry of the 80s, and therefore it would be strange to imagine such a film without it. In general, the answer most likely lies in the fact that the GN is probably simply easier to find in good condition than some other notable model from the 80s.
It’s a pity, because there are very few examples of the 80s hot rodding school in films, and this film does not become a pleasant exception. On the other hand, it is the direction of the 80s that everyone hates, and in this fact may lie the answer to the question of why no one shows such cars on the screen.
Watch the movie Cruise 2018 online:
I looked at half of it, but I’ll write a review now.
Great movie. Just great. Anyone who loves the 80s is recommended. A pile of authentic music interspersed with modern retrowave (which is extremely easy to pick out – whatever one may say, but the old techniques and analog synthesizers are still very different from the modern style).
In addition to music, a huge number of films fit into the culture of the 80s, which hang posters on the wall, stand in cassettes in a video store, are watched in a cinema and discussed by the main characters (“I’m not going to watch Robocop. I don’t like robots or cops.”) My favorite moment is the posters of the Predator and the Missing Guys hanging side by side.
The cars are also perfectly matched. There was even a flash of a pro-street-style unit in the background – for the first time I saw a pro-street car on the screen. On the one hand, it is rather strange that neither films about the 80s nor games about the same time show us the dominant custom culture at that time, and on the other hand, if you know what the pro street direction is famous for, then it is quite understandable that such cars rarely participated in races. But we still have a movie about racing.
And that’s cool. It reminds of the first two Fast and Furious, when the films were about street racing about the culture of street racing. Here’s a Cruise – just about that, only during the 80s. And everything is shown so pleasantly and sincerely that I bet the authors themselves were nostalgic from the bottom of their hearts when staging each scene.
Actually, only the main character causes some bewilderment – in all respects a grizzler from the 50s. Why the authors chose this type is unclear. It seems to me that already in the 80s, when looking at such guys, someone could exclaim in bewilderment: “Haven’t they all died yet?”. Gio looks one hundred percent like a flash from the past. On the other hand, not least thanks to the use of the image of a briolinshchik, a Cruise can safely hang on our website.
Well, now about the cons.
Despite the huge amount of licensed music and a whole ton of cool decorations, the budget was clearly not enough. The guys were spinning as best they could, but when the main character went to the city center, I sighed. There you have modern cars in the background, and extras who are good at what… Or here – I don’t know how it was translated – but on the original English soundtrack, the main character announces that there is a 3.8-liter turbocharged engine in his car. At the same time, the engine itself is not particularly shown to us – I bet they chose a car with a more modest unit for filming.
Nevertheless, all this is forgiven. In the end, it is clear that people tried and gave their best. And it’s clear to everyone that if you don’t have Hollywood budgets, then you can’t disperse half of New York and fill it with your extras. So despite the shoals here and there, the result is very obvious.
Do you like the 80s? Are you enjoying GTA: Vice City and Scarface? Are you listening to Holy Diver mixed with Afrika Bambaataa? Welcome – the Cruise is one hundred percent your movie. It is a pity that it passed almost unnoticed by anyone. Probably, the revival of the 80s is not as big a phenomenon as it seems to me.