A strange prototypical erotic thriller, the eroticism here is rather forced while the murder plot is totally undercooked. But it's what's under the surface here that makes American Gigolo substantial. There's some excellent gay subtext throughout. While Richard Gere is always proudly proclaiming he won't have sex with men, it's clear he has before and there's some underlying reason for his homophobia. It's Paul Schaefer's shortcoming that he shows a gay bar as a hotbed of sexual deviance while heterosexual encounters are mostly glorified to the point of being lame softcore. Nevertheless, he objectifies Gere, albeit overstating his sex appeal in the process. The bold choices, like Gere's unnecessary frontal, almost all pay off. Any pornographic film older than twenty years might have this Giorgio Moroder score.
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