Hardcore (1979) is a powerful film about a father searching for his missing daughter. The cast includes: George C. Scott (as Jake VanDorn), Peter Boyle (as Andy Mast), Season Hubley (as Niki), Dick Sargent (Wes DeJong), Gary Rand Graham (Tod), Marc Alaimo (Ratan), and Ilah Davis (Kristen).

Music for the film was composed by Jack Nitzsche. The photography was by Michael Chapman. The film was produced by Buzz Feitshans. The film was written and directed by Paul Schrader.

As the film begins, the camera shows scenes of a city covered by snow. It is Christmas Day in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The VanDorn family is having Christmas dinner. They are a large, middle-class family, deeply religious, and respectful of each other. Later that day, the girls in the family leave on a bus trip, sponsored by their church, to a Youth Calvinist Convention, which is being held in Bellflower, California.

Jake VanDorn (George C. Scott) is the successful owner of a manufacturing company. He is separated from his wife, who had left him to live in the East. He is conservative in opinion and lifestyle, and is a devout Calvinist.

A few days later, he receives a telephone call from California, informing him that his daughter, Kristen, has disappeared. He is shocked by the news, and decides to take a plane to California. When he reaches California, he learns from the police that his daughter had been seen talking to an older boy before she disappeared.

Jake decides to hire a private investigator to help find Kristen. He and his brother-in-law, Wes, go to meet the investigator (Peter Boyle) at a restaurant. The detective, whose name is Andy Mast, is a sleazy, wise-cracking, untrustworthy character, who says that his fee is $750 a week. He talks bluntly to Jake, telling him that his daughter may have run away, and may not have been abducted.

Mast advises Jake to return home, and to await further information. Jake decides to return to Grand Rapids, but becomes frustrated after weeks of waiting for news of his missing daughter.

Mast travels to Grand Rapids, and takes Jake to an adult movie arcade, where hardcore pornographic movies are being shown, telling him that there is something he needs to see to learn more about his daughter.

Jake sits down in the empty theatre, and watches a film. The film shows Kristen being undressed and engaging in sex with a young man and woman. Jake suffers great mental distress and anguish as he watches the screen. Mast had found the film in a pornographic film store in Los Angeles, but has not yet located Kristen.

Jake decides to return to California to look for his daughter. He realizes that he has to confront the possibility that, if he finds her, she may have been changed by living in a different environment. She may have wanted to run away, and may not want to come home.

He realizes that he has to learn to understand a new system of behavioral ethics, different from his own. As he tries to understand a new system of beliefs which is alien to him, he recognizes that he has to examine his own beliefs.

He realizes that, to find his daughter, he has to enter the world of pornography and prostitution. He has to confront a world of immorality and degradation.

Jake feels a sense of righteous outrage, that his daughter has been taken away from him by forces which he cannot control. But he realizes that he must see the world as it is, and feels that he must temporarily adopt a viewpoint which is not confined by his strict religious beliefs.

He is angered by Mast’s failure to pursue the search for Kristen, and fires him. He starts driving his car through the streets of Los Angeles, looking for Kristen.

Jake visits bookstores that sell pornography, looking for pictures of Kristen, and for other information that might help in finding her. He seems out-of-place in the decadent underworld of porno shops and theatres, and changes his business suit for more casual clothing, trying to fit in with other people.

He masquerades as a producer of pornographic movies, in order to get information about Kristen. He shows a picture of his daughter to a female stripper, named Niki (Season Hubley). Niki recognizes Kristen’s picture, but says that Kristen has changed her name to Joann. Niki does not know how to locate her, but says that Kristen had a boyfriend named Tod, who went to San Diego. Jake offers Niki $900 a week, to go with him to San Diego, to help find Kristen.

Niki thinks that Jake is a private detective, and he pretends that she has guessed his identity. They travel to San Diego. He tells her that he is actually searching for his daughter.

She tells him that he seems to have a negative attitude, and asks him what he truly believes in. He tells her about his religious beliefs.

He says that he believes that all human beings, through Original Sin, are totally depraved. He believes that all human beings are evil and are incapable of good. God has chosen who will be saved, and only the chosen can go to heaven. God’s grace cannot be resisted or denied, and those who are chosen cannot fall from the ranks of the elected. The elected are predestined to be saved, because God is omniscient, and God therefore knows the names of those who will be saved, even before the world was created.

Jake tells Niki that he is a middle-class person, from the Midwest, who goes to church, and believes in God, and who believes that, at the end of his life, he will be redeemed. He does not care about what is happening in New York, or in Los Angeles. He does not care about what is in the movies, or on TV. The only thing he cares about right now is his daughter.

Meanwhile, Jake’s brother-in-law, Wes, is troubled by Jake’s decision to enter the underworld of pornography and prostitution, in search of Kristen, and hires Mast to protect him.

Niki finds out that Tod went to Tijuana with a man named Ratan, and that Tod is now in San Francisco. Tod’s friend, Ratan, is a dangerous criminal with a sinister reputation.

Ratan is an entrepreneur in pornography and violence. Jake tries to learn more about him, and discovers that there is a secretly-produced film, which shows Ratan engaging in acts of sadism, actually killing two people on film.

Jake and Niki travel to San Francisco, and she arranges for Jake to meet Tod. When Jake meets Tod, and demands to know where Kristen is, Tod grabs an iron chain, and swings it at Jake. Jake grabs Tod, and hurls him into the street, wrestling and beating him into submission. Jake forces Tod to tell him that Ratan is at a nightclub across the street.

When Jake enters the nightclub, Kristen is sitting next to Ratan. Jake confronts them, and Ratan pulls out a knife, and tries to stab him. Mast appears, and Ratan tries to escape, running out to the street. Mast is holding a gun, and shoots Ratan, killing him.

Jake is reunited with Kristin, who tells him that she ran away because he never showed that he never loved her. He is distraught, and says that he has always loved her, but that, until now, he did not know how to show his love. As the film ends, they reconcile with each other, and they leave the nightclub together.

Hardcore is a fascinating and graphic depiction of a personal descent into the dark places of the soul. The film, like Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, for which Paul Schrader also wrote the screenplay, portrays the theme of an individual who feels a sense of suppressed rage, building to a final act of violence. The violent catharsis provides a stunning climax to the film.

Highlights of the film include George C. Scott’s magnificent performance as the enraged and tormented father, and Peter Boyle’s amusing, engaging, quirky performance as the sleazy detective.

The film contains some interesting perspectives on sexual attitudes in society. Other themes of the film include: the clash between morality and immorality; the social problems represented by the pornography industry; the search for moral redemption and justification: and the role of religious beliefs in responding to problems of everyday reality, such as crime and violence.