When the daughter of a bible-thumping businessman (George C. Scott) goes missing in California, he hires a private detective (Peter Boyle) to search the city's seedy underbelly for her. But then he catches him sampling the local girls and, suitably perturbed, decides to conduct the search for himself. Thus, "Hardcore" gives us the wonderful sight of Academy Award winner George C. Scott prowling the night, taking in all the tits a religious conservative could ever dread to encounter, and hoping that his daughter's apparent foray into pornographic movies hasn't led her into even darker territory. Scott's character may be a man of God, but the filmmakers behind this movie don't appear to be, and "Hardcore" is all the better for it, coming in as darkly funny as it is giddily exploitative. Paul Schrader really struck gold getting Scott in for this (as well as a scene-stealing Peter Boyle) and he makes the most of it. It's not all boobs and bafflement that awaits Scott, either; he gets to beat the snot out of a couple of porn actors and pimps along the way. What's not to like? Probably a lot, actually, but why dwell on that when the movie is so damn engaging? A great movie for curators of sleaze.
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