American Gigolo

American Gigolo

The film that set the style for the 80s

Every so often a film comes along that defines the look of an era. On February 1, 1980 the film American Gigolo was released, making it among the first major studio films of that decade, and the look of the film set the stage for a radical change in style for the 1980s. Gone were bell bottoms, leisure suits, wide ties and brown, orange and green clothes. Even the film's poster, featuring the film's lead, Richard Gere smartly dressed in an austere environment, in the striped shadows of a Venetian blind exudes 80s cool.

The film opens up with to the strains of Blondie's "Call Me", a song that practically epitomizes 80s New Wave, and quite frankly is far more memorable than the film itself. Though the movie defines the look of the of the 1980s, it's hardly notable for much else. The plot is a plodding two hours of conventional melodrama with Gere's character Julian sleeping with wealthy women, and eventually framed for murdering one of them. The film takes forever to get started, and then forever to wrap up.

Much like one of Julian's trysts - or the decade of the 1980s itself for that matter - American Gigolo is ultimately an emotionally shallow, style over substance affair, most notable for coming along, and perhaps contributing to, a sea change in the American cultural landscape.

(*** out of *****)