Although movies about cruising peaked with ‘American Graffiti‘ in 1973, stories about gearheads driving up and down the strip never really went away. Case in point is the independent film ‘Cruise‘, which technically reached theatres in a limited release in September 2018 before disappearing almost immediately into the home-video market. That helps explain why you’ve probably never heard of it.
That’s a shame, because ‘Cruise‘ is an incredibly convincing period piece set in late-1980s Queens. The cars are right, the clothes are right, the slang is right and the Freestyle soundtrack is bangin’. At the centre of it all is Gio, local king of the streets, driving the baddest, blackest Buick Grand National in the neighbourhood. It’s never been beat. All the guys want to be him and all the girls want to be with him.
ACT I: THE LOOP
Every night, Gio and his two buddies cruise Francis Lewis Boulevard, a loop they call the ‘Franny Lew’, checking out the scene, finding guys to race and seeing which girl will be tonight’s trophy. Gio is basically Tony Manero from ‘Saturday Night Fever‘ with a turbo V6 instead of a disco floor. He’s got the looks, the hair, the machismo and that ultimate ’80s status symbol, the beeper.
The movie understands the tiny details that make a period piece believable. Gio works at an auto parts store but makes his real money stealing car stereos, especially Alpine and Blaupunkt pull-out decks. Before removable faceplates became common, the whole stereo slid out of the dashboard. Smart owners carried theirs around; lazy ones shoved them under the seat. Gio knew exactly where to look.
Add Shea Stadium, grimy industrial Queens, old diners and a soundtrack full of Freestyle and synth-pop, and ‘Cruise‘ feels less like a modern movie dressed up as 1987 and more like somebody found an old VHS in a storage locker. Even the Franny Lew feels authentic. The boulevard is an early social network where you drive around to see who’s out, who has a new ride, who wants to race and who is going to be tonight’s conquest.
But Gio is already getting tired of his little kingdom. At the diner, his buddies order ‘the usual’ while Gio studies the menu. They’ve eaten there every night for years, so why is he suddenly looking so hard? As the camera stares at Gio for an uncomfortably long time, he says he wants to see if there is something else he’s been missing. That little moment is the whole movie hiding in plain sight. Gio has become very good at a life that is starting to feel too small.
ACT II: TWO WORLDS COLLIDE
Then Jessica enters the picture. She is a spoiled rich kid from the suburbs, Jewish, college-bound and living in a world Gio barely knows exists. At first it looks like the streetwise Gio will be the one showing the sheltered rich girl how the other half lives. Instead, Jessica takes him outside Queens.
She brings Gio into Manhattan to record shops, art galleries and repertoire movie theatres. Suddenly the guy who acts like emperor of New York is a tourist in his own city. Gio knows every corner of Franny Lew, but Jessica knows there are whole worlds beyond it.
That is what makes the relationship interesting. They aren’t simply opposites who fall in love; they expose each other’s limits. Jessica shows Gio that there is a whole world outside Queens, while Gio pushes Jessica to stop being so afraid of what her parents expect from her. She has money, education and every opportunity, but much of her life has already been mapped out. Gio challenges her to follow her heart, stand up for herself and admit that this neighbourhood hoodlum isn’t just some summer fling. He’s her boyfriend.
So they both get something they badly need from the relationship. Gio learns that his little kingdom isn’t the whole world, while Jessica starts to understand that having every opportunity means nothing if you’re too scared to choose your own path. Neither one exactly ‘saves’ the other. They just make it harder for each other to keep pretending they’re happy with the life already laid out in front of them.
By the time Gio drops Jessica off at her huge house and heads back to the boulevard, nothing around him has changed. Same friends, same cars, same streets, same routine. The difference is that Gio has changed. Once you’ve seen beyond the loop, driving around it again doesn’t feel the same.
ACT III: LOSING THE CHARIOT
The final act gets much crazier. Gio’s usual hooligan routine of stolen stereos, street racing and chasing girls suddenly gets serious when a stolen Toyota turns out to contain a half kilo of cocaine. Gio and his friends make extremely poor decisions with it, including snorting plenty of it then sharing it with friends at the bowling alley. Before long, the drug dealers track them down and demand $6,000 for the used-up blow.
That debt leads to the final drag race: Gio’s Grand National against a small-block Camaro with 4.10 gears. Winner takes the other guy’s car. Gio wins again, but the Camaro swerves and crashes. The victory doesn’t solve anything, and Gio has to give the drug dealers his Grand National to settle the debt and save his friends.
The Buick is not just his car. It is his reputation, his masculinity and his independence.
At the beginning of ‘Cruise‘, taking away the Grand National would be the same as taking away Gio’s identity. By the end, giving it away is the first truly adult decision he makes. For most of the movie Gio proves himself by winning things; now he finally proves himself by giving something up.
That brings us back to the diner. Gio has spent years driving the same physical loop while living the same emotional one: work, diner, boulevard, easy girls, street racing and stolen stereos. Everybody else is happy with ‘the usual’, but Gio knows there has to be something else.
Jessica shows him another menu. Losing the Grand National finally takes away the machine that kept carrying him around the same circle every night. The guy we meet at the beginning would have been crushed to lose that Buick. The guy at the end might actually need to lose it.
For the first time, the king of Franny Lew may finally be ready to go somewhere.