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Hardcore
Price: $19.95 Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 4011039100841
Format: NTSC
Languages: German (Original Language), Analog
Theatrical Release Date: 1979
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Editorial Review:
Although it never achieved the classic status of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver or the greater critical acclaim of his own Blue Collar, Hardcore remains a vital film from the early career of writer-director Paul Schrader. It's a solid companion piece to Taxi Driver (and uses much of the same crew, including cinematographer Michael Chapman), with a similar descent-into-hell storyline. Schrader's strict Calvinist upbringing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, provides the semi-autobiographical launching point for a journey into the dark heart of pornography and prostitution, beginning when a stern, morally upright Calvinist father (George C. Scott) learns that his teenage daughter has vanished during a church-sponsored visit to California. She's a runaway on a rapidly downward spiral, and Scott recruits a sleazy private detective (Peter Boyle) and a sympathetic porno-actress (Season Hubley) to try and find her. Although Schrader's much-criticized ending doesn't ring entirely true, there's much to admire here, from Scott's memorably anguished performance to the vivid authenticity of the film's seedy, threatening locations and the conflicting moral issues raised in an atmosphere of hopeless depravity. As its title suggests, Hardcore is a potent, uncompromising film, definitely not for prudes or underage viewers. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - an investigation in two "hardcore" worlds
In this movie, we see the dichotomy and similarities of people who live "hardcore."
First we see the "hardcore" world of straightlaced Jake VanDorn (George C. Scott.) He lives in a world so structured that everything in his life is alphabetized in his hardcore religious faith. It is such a world that drove away his wife and drove away his daughter to seek warmth in another world equally as hardcore- the sleazy world of the sex industry.
These two worlds collide in the ... Read More
Rating: - starts slow, but worth the wait
After the obligatory DID WE MENTION HE'S RELIGIOUS??? opening of the film with all the typical Norman Rockwell scenery and lots of organ music (actually not bad...kinda tense and creepy), what you have is a pretty well directed (though badly edited) film with some great performances from George C. Scott and Peter Boyle. Season Hubley does a good job for her (short) part of the film, reminding me of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. Supposedly, the crew of that movie (sans Scorsese) made this one as well, ... Read More
Rating: - Moralists DO make the BEST porn...
I saw this film on TV about 15 years ago. Cable edited a bit here and there, I could tell. But overall, the movie was preserved. I'll have to buy it soon to see it again.
A scathing attack on the recent 'legalization' of pornography when it was made, it ends up being titillating in a disturbing way. And so over the top, it gets funny, even though the subject is anything but.
An overbearingly religious man loses his daughter and then goes into the underworld that swallowed ... Read More
Rating:  - World of Depravity
George Scott's and Susan Hubley's acting are the best part of this movie. However, Scott's acting could have been even more appreciated had the screenplay dealt more with his relationship with his runaway daughter than with his tour of the porno or sleaze world. But instead the movie becomes a detective story of Scott's attempt to find his missing teenage daughter, meeting and dealing with so many sleazeballs and obstacles.
But the real drama of this story was missing-- why did his daughter ... Read More
Rating: - A Fathers Worst Nightmare
Hadn't seen this movie in quite a few years. I thought I would check it out when it came out on DVD. This is a story about a Michigan man who is a single parent and lives in a good Christian extended family that he is very close to. His 15 year old daughter inexplicably runs away from home which leads the father to hire a private eye to find her. After several agonizing months the private eye comes to Grand Rapids and takes the father to a dirty movie theater he has rented out and shows him a pornographic ... Read More
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