Paul Schrader's Hardcore (1979) is a scalding experience. As in Taxi Driver, Schrader sets a self-proclaimed moralist loose in a depraved urban environment. It's strangely more raw and more empathetic than Scorsese's flick, hurt mainly by questionable plotting.Businessman Jake VanDorn's (George C. Scott) life crumbles when his daughter Kristen (Ilah Davis) vanishes during a church outing. He hires detective Andy Mast (Peter Boyle), who tracks Kristen to Los Angeles and spots her in a porn film. He descends into California's sexual underworld, posing as a producer while tracking a shadowy figure named Ratan. Jake receives help from prostitute Niki (Season Hubley), who develops an unlikely friendship with Jake.
Schrader again reconfigures The Searchers into a modern setting. Like Ethan Edwards tracking the Comanches, Jake projects his sexual neuroses onto Kristen's captors. Everything he encounters, from peep shows and massage parlors to snuff films, confirms Christian nightmares of a decadent, sexualized society. Jake, a Dutch Reform Calvinist, is so uptight he doesn't even swear; he's thrust violently into a world where sex and lives are equally cheap.
Hardcore doesn't corrupt Jake; he retains his integrity even as he auditions actors and prowls peepshows. Schrader, drawing on his own Calvinist background, is too smart for that. Jake finds kinship with Niki; they debate theology and morality with wit and self-awareness. Jake's attracted to Niki's openness; Niki, fleeing a pimp, finds Jake an unlikely father figure. It takes the cynical Mast to knock sense into both of them.
Schrader's direction goes for forceful contrasts, using Michael Chapman's photography to contrast idyllic Grand Rapids with seedy Los Angeles. Michigan is a snow-blown suburbia of hardworking folks; LA, a garishly lit, garbage-strewn nightmare. Jack Nitzsche's striking score alternates hymns with menacing fuzz guitar. It heightens the undercurrent of explosive violence; Jake bashes a performer with a lamp and crashes through the walls of a bawdy house pursuing a suspect. Only Hardcore's conclusion disappoints. Kristen's an ephemeral presence so the last act fails to shock us; the pained reconciliation scene feels forced. Similarly, Ratan is simply a switchblade-wielding goon, lacking personality and easily dispatched. Unlike Taxi Driver, which made Iris and Sport's relationship credible, we don't buy Kristen and Ratan's closeness. Since Ratan murders clients on camera, it requires a special strain of Stockholm Syndrome, and heavy suspension of disbelief.
George C. Scott gives a remarkable performance. Avoiding the temptation to eat scenery (even his "Turn it off!" breakdown's relatively restrained), Scott's focused rage sells a torturously conflicted character. Peter Boyle's grouchy detective and Season Hubley's weary hooker provide conduits to the "real world." Other costars - Dick Sargent as Jake's straight-laced brother-in-law, Leonard Gaines's porn maven - make little impression.
Despite its flaws, Hardcore is a bracing, unforgettable film. It's a shame that Schrader can't land the faux-happy ending. But then, neither could John Ford.
