Movie Type: Psychological Drama, Post-Noir (Modern Noir)
Themes: Obsessive Quests, Kids in Trouble, Fathers and Daughters
Main Cast: George C. Scott, Peter Boyle, Season Hubley, Leonard Gaines, Dick Sargent
Release Year: 1979
Country: US
Run Time: 108 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
"Oh my God, that's my daughter." So read the advertising copy of Hardcore. George C. Scott plays Jake Van Dorn, a man of means and conservative values who discovers that his precious daughter is appearing in X-rated films. Desperately making his way through the sub-rosa world of pornography, Van Dorn talks to pimps, prostitutes, and other such sterling individuals in hopes of locating his daughter and dragging her home. At one point, he falsely advertises himself as a porn producer in hopes that his little girl will show up for an interview. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
For his second film as writer/director, Paul Schrader merged elements of his Midwestern Dutch Calvinist background, his cinephilia, and California post-'60s sexual decadence in the bleak drama Hardcore. Modeled -- like Taxi Driver (1976) -- after John Ford's seminal Western The Searchers (1956), Hardcore's story of a pious father's search for his runaway daughter takes an intense George C. Scott from his upstanding Michigan home through the sordid wilderness of the California porn world. Scott's revulsion is matched by the film's morbid fascination with the sex industry. Peter Boyle's unsavory private investigator and Season Hubley's strung-out hooker serve as compelling protectors and guides. True to the Ford antecedent, Scott's daughter resists her rescue, but the clumsily incongruous ending carries none of The Searchers' or Taxi Driver's expressive ambiguity. Even with its flaws, however, Hardcore's stolidly mournful, occasionally complex examination of a cultural dark side is almost everything Joel Schumacher's ultra-sleazy porn odyssey 8MM (1999) wants to be but isn't. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Dave Nichols - Kurt; Marc Alaimo - Ratan; Leslie Ackerman - Felice; Charlotte McGinnis - Beatrice; Ilah Davis - Kristen Van Dom; Will Walker - Jism Jim; Jean Allison - Mrs. Steensma; Ed Begley, Jr. - Soldier; Bibi Besch - Mary; Larry Black - Detective Burrows; Reb Brown - Manager; Gary Graham - Tod; Paul Marin - Joe Van Dorn; Gigi Vorgan; Tracey Walter - Male Teller; Hal Williams - Big Dick Blaque; Roy London - Jim Rucker; Stewart Steinberg
Credit
Edwin O'Donovan - Art Director, Vic Ramos - Casting, Richard Hashimoto - First Assistant Director, Paul Schrader - Director, Tom Rolf - Editor, John Milius - Executive Producer, Jack Nitzsche - Composer (Music Score), Paul Sylbert - Production Designer, Michael Chapman - Cinematographer, Buzz Feitshans - Producer, John Milius - Producer, Bruce Weintraub - Set Designer, Paul Schrader - Screenwriter
Jake Van Dorn (Scott) is a prosperous local businessman in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A single parent, Van Dorn is the father of a seemingly quiet, conservative teenage girl, Kristen, who inexplicably disappears when she goes on a church-sponsored trip to California.
Eventually, Van Dorn learns that his daughter has run away and entered the world of pornography in Los Angeles. The story is an odyssey of the upright and uptight Van Dorn as he journeys through the seedy world of California's pornography underground. Having no luck with the authorities, Van Dorn retains the services of a strange private detective, played by Peter Boyle, to locate his daughter.
Fed up with no results from the PI or the police, a desperate Van Dorn ends up posing as a porno movie producer in the hopes that he will unearth information about his daughter. Along the way, he enlists the aid of a sometime porno actress/hooker named Nikki, played by Season Hubley. They form an uneasy alliance as Nikki helps Van Dorn navigate his way through the maze of smut from Los Angeles and ending in San Francisco, eventually discovering that his daughter may be in the hands of a very dangerous porn player who deals in the world of "snuff movies."
Writer-director Schrader had previously written the screenplay for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, and the films share a theme of exploring an unseen subculture. One major criticism of the film at the time was that it utilizes the same sensationalistic elements of sleaze that it is attempting to criticize and comment upon.
