tonytaesser The thing that attracted me the most was the slave trade which was organized by the west which was shown in multiple films such as Khartoum by Charlton Heston and Ashanti by Michael Caine in this movies it was shown that third world countries were the ones that had bad behaviors but this film depicts the other side of the world ; A father whose daughter disappeared found out that his daughter has become a commodity to some people who are earning money off of her abusing her body . One of the most scenes for me was when the girl had to pay George C. Scott to talk to her over the phone and she was naked with only a glass wall between them ; I did not know that body trade could reach this limit .

SnoopyStyle Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) is a furniture manufacturer and a leader in a religiously conservative community. His teenage daughter goes on a church youth trip to California. Then she goes missing. He's beside himself. The cops can't do much. So he hires sleazy private investigator Andy Mast (Peter Boyle). Andy finds a porno film with her in it, and Jake goes on a quest to find her in L.A.This is an ugly movie. There is no rose-colored glasses. This is not 'Boogie Nights'. The sex trade is dirty. The porno film industry is a business and not a family. George C. Scott is especially compelling as the distraught father, and Season Hubley as the sex trade worker who helps to track her down. Writing/director Paul Schrader has certainly been involved in some iconic movies in that era.

ems97 This movie shows how insulated people are within their own world views. It also shows how people devalue the world views of others. The storyline of the movie is that a Calvinist man's daughter goes missing in California. The man becomes aware that she has become involved in pornography, and he tries to track her down. The movie shows his awkwardness as he explores the world of pornography and prostitution. The movie really gets interesting when he hires a young woman sex worker to help him in the search. He explains his Calvinist belief in predestination to her, and she responds by saying that it doesn't make any sense. The man responds that "it all makes sense from the inside." In the following scenes, we see how the young woman has a world view that makes sense to her, but is totally alien to the man. The film presents the problems with both the world views of the man and the young woman. It is a gripping journey through moral ambiguity.

CitizenCaine Paul Schrader is a writer/director known for utilizing his own Calvinist background in his screenplays and films. In Hardcore, George C. Scott is a Calvinist furniture salesman who finds himself searching for his runaway daughter (Ilah Davis) in the seedy porn parlors of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Scott plays Jake Van Dorn well as he gradually becomes unhinged throughout the film, confronting forces both at odds with his personal beliefs as well as with obstructing his search. Simultaneously, Schrader's screenplay sets up the paradox of Van Dorn exploiting the hooker (Season Hubley) he befriends for information during his search for his supposedly exploited daughter. On the other hand, Niki, the hooker who eventually helps Van Dorn, is really only doing so because she's naive enough to think Van Dorn will "take care of her" after all is said and done. As is the case with most of Schrader's films, his protagonist experiences a psychological journey while being catapulted into the nether regions of corruption and depravity. The film takes what appears to be an unintended humorous timeout when Van Dorn poses as a producer casting for a film, taking appointments with potential "actors" in a seedy motel room. Van Dorn meets Andy Mast, a seedy private detective played by Peter Boyle, who seems bent on preventing Van Dorn from discovering the inevitable about his daughter while simultaneously taking Van Dorn's money for doing little else. Schrader develops tension slowly, but Van Dorn's cathartic exercise at the end and the reappearance of Mast assisting Van Dorn simply doesn't ring true, even though Van Dorn's brother-in-law, played by Dick Sargent, hires Mast to find and protect Van Dorn. Until the marred ending, Schrader takes viewers on a journey many would not otherwise take: adult video stores, porn parlors, prostitutes, smut films. In retrospect, these scenes are probably tame now, but some still have the ability to shock and startle. The film fails to depict the intended dichotomy of Van Dorn's daughter's upbringing and the underground porn world she inhabits because it does not focus on Grand Rapids, her hometown, beyond the film's first couple scenes. Therefore, viewers must wade through a good deal of the film before coming to a realization why Kristen, Ilah Davis, runs away from her church group in California. As Schrader's extension of Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, Van Dorn fails; in that, the viewer never believes Van Dorn will become totally unhinged like Bickle. Van Dorn remains in too much control of himself throughout the film. As he becomes more obsessed with finding his daughter, scenes of levity counteract his obsession, detracting from the film's ultimate potential effect. Van Dorn's banter with Mast, his conversations with Niki, and his initial interviews with potential "actors" in the motel room (while wearing a toupee and mustache) are examples. The film never treats the girls in the porn industry as deserving of much empathy. Thus, the resolution between Van Dorn and Niki comes as no surprise. Had Schrader worked more on building up that illusion in his and Niki's mind, which would still be consistent with his beliefs yet hypocritical, and then ended the film the same way, it would have made for a more devastating film. *** of 4 stars.