Before he struck critically-acclaimed gold with Capote, Moneyball, and Foxcatcher, director Bennett Miller stepped onto the scene with the 1998 lo-fi, black and white documentary The Cruise. The documentary follows the eccentric tour guide Timothy “Speed” Levitch, a nasally-voiced human encyclopedia of all things New York City. The subject stands atop a double-decker bus spewing out a vast amount of information as well as the figures involved with the city of a thousand stories as the bus soars around Manhattan and other places. “New York City is a living organism — it evolves and devolves”, a quote said by Levitch as he conversates with Miller about the city he both loves and somewhat criticizes (we’ll get into that later). Levitch’s tour-bus monologues are poetic, sprawling, insightful, and bombastic and this documentary is no different. The Cruise gives us the rare cinematic synergy where a work of art is just as colorful and eccentric as its subject.
Center: Timothy “Speed” Levitch in THE CRUISE, Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.
Speed may be an eccentric subject for this documentary but that doesn’t mean he’s not grounded. In one scene, he tells us “you can’t expect people to transform in an afternoon. They are not going to rewrite their souls … before they come onto this double-decker bus.” But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t at least try to deliver a transformative experience to his tour guests. If Robin Williams (Bicentennial Man), with all his eccentricities and colorful asides, was a knowledgeable tour guide, he’d no doubt be Speed. Speed carries a lot of information about a city that he is constantly breaking up with and falling back in love with (by his own words). He speaks about the city ever-changing and him being frustrated with this constant evolution (and de-volution), feeling like he can almost never keep up with his beloved city. I have a feeling this gentleman would be a huge detractor of the present commerce-fueled sin that is gentrification. Personal contradictory feelings aside, Speed has no pretentiousness in his game. Whether he deals with location disputes with his employer, ever-shifting tour bus drivers (who he affectionately brings into his monologues), Speed’s key mission is to deliver an unforgettable, fun, and hilarious ride through NYC with unique and sprawling narration. Pairing the tour rides with his personal odyssey of walking around New York City, Miller never fails to capture a great moment with his subject. A key scene to note is when Speed admires a building’s terracotta architecture. He compares the architecture to a woman’s curvature, giving strange orgasmic sounds as he marvels at the building. It’s a comedic, strange moment that, like its subject, is neither pretentious nor unwarranted. Miller also finds time to bring moments of empathy for his subject. In one scene, Speed gives a bitter “middle finger”-like dedication to those who have slighted him in his life, from his mother to a group of individuals who went on a double-date for which he was a fifth wheel (in which he audaciously states he was promised an orgy encounter with these four individuals that, alas, didn’t happen).
Timothy “Speed” Levitch in THE CRUISE, Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.
Bennett Miller’s eventual greatness as a filmmaker is seen throughout the DNA of The Cruise in which he attempts to put us into the mind of this fascinating man. Miller and Speed’s collaboration creates not only a surreal documentary but also a relic of NYC history itself. In an earlier scene, Speed tells a young man on the bus one of the things he does for fun — he stands in between the then-standing Twin Towers, spins himself around, lays down and looks up, imagining the towers falling on him with blissful ignorance. More a moment of childlike wonder than a portent of the tragedy that would befall the Towers in 2001, Miller actually captures Speed doing this towards the end of the film with his camera serving as the POV of Speed looking up at the Towers. The Towers stand tall above us and Speed, all-encompassing and beautiful. It’s a touching ode to beautiful architecture that hits harder today in 2025 than it probably did in 1998. With a subject as deceptively simple as a man who affectionately loves the city in which he resides, it’s no wonder Miller’s cinematography is as black-and-white as its topic. As Speed walks out of a fire exit in a tall building (something’s he gotten away with once but on a second time, had a stern talking to) and into a ball of light, we can imagine the light representing the bright cinematic career Miller would carry after releasing this documentary. Celebrating the film’s 25th anniversary, Oscilloscope Laboratories’s release of The Cruise comes in a lean but well-crafted Blu-ray. The film is presented in 1080 p with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio and English subtitles. The supplemental features include a theatrical trailer and great additional never-before-seen footage including a rooftop interview with Speed and a direct speech of his to family members and others. For any Bennett Miller completionists and lovers of unique, low-fi documentaries, this release is a must-have.
The Cruise Special Features:
- Additional never-before-seen footage
- Theatrical trailer
Available on Blu-ray and DVD July 29th, 2025.
For more information, head to the Oscilloscope Laboratories The Cruise website.
To purchase, head either to the official The Cruise Oscilloscope Laboratories or MVD Entertainment Group webpage.
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Categories: Home Release, Recommendation
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