Schrader captures a change in American cinema, from the experimentalism of the 70s to what would end up happening in the 80s, when the individual kept himself in a state of passive, indifferent contemplation. The starting point is a game centered on a Los Angeles gigolo charged with murder. The film is prescient of the existential void that would take the decadent 80s by storm, illustrated here by the Armani costumes and composer Giorgio Moroder’s synthesizers. This is the film where Schrader’s sticks his closest to the incommunicability of Robert Bresson, a filmmaker he reveres.