Though he played prominent roles in notable flicks like 1977’s Looking for Mr. Goodbar and 1978’s Days of Heaven, 1980’s American Gigolo became the movie that made him a star – sort of. I would argue 1982’s hugely successful Officer and a Gentleman acted as Gere’s first real success, but Gigolo set him on that path.

Julian Kay (Richard Gere) works as a high-priced male escort in Los Angeles. This allows him to enjoy a sophisticated – but inherently solitary - lifestyle.

Two factors begin to change Julian’s perspective. First he meets Michelle Stratton (Lauren Hutton), a wealthy woman who begins as a trick but who develops into something else. However, her marriage to US Senator Charles Stratton (Brian Davies) complicates this.

In a darker vein, a client of Julian’s (Patty Carr) gets murdered. This leads Detective Joe Sunday (Héctor Elizondo) to suspect Julian, a factor that forces Julian to scramble to prove his innocence.

38 years later, it seems tough to believe Paul Schrader didn’t earn an Oscar nomination for 1976’s classic Taxi Driver. Despite this perplexing snub, Schrader did use his newfound status to leap to the director’s chair with 1978’s Blue Collar.

After 1979’s controversial Hardcore, Gigolo appeared to offer Schrader a shot at the mainstream. As already noted, it didn’t find a major audience, however.

I can’t claim moviegoers circa 1980 missed out, unfortunately. Despite some potentially intriguing plot threads, Gigolo winds up as a strangely dull experience.

Honestly, Schrader’s choice to focus on two major narrative domains feels like a concession to his lack of inspiration. Gigolo seems to exist to capitalize on its unusual male prostitute theme and Schrader can’t find much else to do beyond that.

As such, we wind up with two competing – though somewhat connected – story elements. After a long introduction to Julian and his lifestyle, the components related to Michelle and to the murder dominate.

Either could flesh out a decent movie individually. Schrader’s choice to meld the two feels like an act of insecurity to me, as though he worried neither would seem sufficient.

This creates a movie with an odd lack of drive. Gigolo takes far too long to really start to explore either topic, and even when it does, it never commits in a compelling manner.

Again, a romantic-drama about the male prostitute’s love for the married politician’s wife could work in that genre. A thriller about a guy who lives on the seedy side of sophisticated could also connect.

A movie that awkwardly combines the two goes nowhere, though. Schrader doesn’t develop either side well enough to become more than a chore to watch.

Gere does fine as our lead. Indeed, Julian feels like the origination of the “Richard Gere Character”, a role in which he plays aloof and arrogant.

Gigolo also hints at a depth that it could’ve explored. It inherently revolves around lonely characters, with Julian at the fore.

Despite his looks and charm, Julian appears to have no real friends and he seems to live a solitary lifestyle beyond his paid dalliances. This could offer a compelling character study.

Instead, Schrader just nibbles around the edges and never explores any of these themes well. Gigolo turns into a surprisingly dull cinematic experience.

American Gigolo appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Gigolo came with a largely appealing presentation.

For the most part, sharpness worked fine. A little softness impacted the occasional interior, but these instances remained modest and non-intrusive.

No signs of jagged edges or moiré effect appeared, and I saw no edge haloes. With a natural layer of grain, the image didn’t seem to suffer from egregious noise reduction techniques, and print flaws became a non-factor.

Colors opted for a semi-natural feel, though we got some more vivid hues at times. The tones seemed appropriate and well-rendered.

Blacks appeared pretty deep and dense, while shadows offered appropriate clarity. This was a nice rendition of the film.

An “update” came with the Blu-ray’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, as it remixed the film’s original monaural audio – which also appeared on the disc. This didn’t feel like a problematic alteration, as the 5.1 version didn’t go crazy.

This meant a soundfield that oriented toward the front channels. In that domain, music showed good spread, and effects created a decent impression of place and movement.

Surrounds added minor information as well. This mainly meant music, but a little ambience came from the back channels too.

Audio worked fine for its age. Speech seemed fairly natural, with only a little edginess at times.

Effects also felt a bit dated, but they demonstrated adequate clarity and accuracy. Music fared best, as the score and songs appeared pretty full and rich. The track seemed more than adequate for something released in 1980.

As we shift to extras, we find an audio commentary from film critic Adrian Martin. He offers a running, screen-specific look at story/characters, influences and genre domains, cast and performances, interpretation and analysis, and the work of writer/director Paul Schrader.

One shouldn’t expect much information about the Gigolo shoot, as Martin only sporadically digs into the production history. Nonetheless, he gets into the movie well from other perspectives and makes this a pretty engaging chat.

Seven segments show up under “Interviews”, and Below the Surface runs 19 minutes, 37 seconds and features writer/director Paul Schrader.

The filmmaker discusses the project’s origins and elements of its creation, story, characters and themes, influences, stylistic choices, casting, music, locations, the movie’s sex/rating and related areas. Schrader delivers a solid overview of the various subjects.

Six Ways to Sunday goes for 10 minutes, 46 seconds. We hear from actor Héctor Elizondo.

He chats about what led him to acting as well as aspects of his Gigolo experiences. While not a fascinating reel, Elizondo brings enough useful notes to make the featurette worth a look.

Next comes The Business of Pleasure. It lasts 15 minutes, 26 seconds and involves actor Bill Duke.

Here we learn about his career and his work on Gigolo. He offers an enjoyable chat, especially when he looks at how his race impacted his career.

Montages and Monologues fills seven minutes, 15 seconds. This show gives us notes from editor Richard Halsey.

We find info about the movie’s editing. Halsey provides a short but succinct discussion.

After this we move to The Non-Conformist. A 25-minute, five-second piece, it features camera operator King Baggot.

He also tells us about how he got into movies as well his work on Gigolo. With 25 minutes at his disposal, Baggot delivers some solid info.

Man Machine lasts 15 minutes, three seconds. It brings info from music supervisor/DJ Dan Wilcox.

The program mainly looks at Gigolo composer Giorgio Moroder and the film’s score/songs. Expect another useful reel, even if it leans a little too heavily toward praise than I’d prefer.

Finally, American Icon spans 18 minutes, 54 seconds. In this reel, we hear from Professor of Communication and Media Studies Jennifer Clark.

She looks at how the film connected to fashion in its era and subsequent years. Clark offers a reasonable view of these topics.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we finish with three Image Galleries. These cover “Stills” (26 shots), “Posters and Press” (8) and “Lobby Cards” (8). Some of the ads are interesting but that’s about it.

Oddly dull and monotonous, American Gigolo fails to go much of anywhere. Neither a compelling character piece nor a winning thriller, the movie plods slowly on its road to nowhere. The Blu-ray offers positive picture and audio along with a solid roster of bonus materials. Gigolo just fizzles.