The Harder They Come | News | The Harvard Crimson

HARDCORE directed by Paul Schrader at the Sack Paris By Katherine P. States, February 15, 1979 MOST BAD MOVIES have some redeeming virtues--an ambitious idea, a suspenseful moment, some good acting, a little imaginative direction. Hardcore, however, is only interesting as evidence director Paul Schrader's professional sellout. As he plods through a made-for-TV-story, Schrader shows no inclination to communicate anything but his boredom. The story of a Grand Rapids businessman tracking down his missing daughter in the seamy world of pornography had potential both as a commercial success and as a moving and controversial screenplay, but Schrader fails to introduce the powerful emotional issues that could have accomplished either. Although George C. Scott as the father gives the audience some agonized faces and fits of rage, even his performance is not compelling. The fiction of the film fails to reveal why the daughter runs away, or why she would agree--in the astonishingly unconvincing...