Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

philosopherjack Viewed today, Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way seems even more clearly an expression of America's divisions and fractures: sleek images of privilege clash with outbursts of paranoia, dark fantasy and instability - the film's evasive mastery lies in the frequent difficulty of determining the dividing lines. Jeff Bridges' Richard Bone witnesses the late-night dumping of a murdered woman, and thinks the murderer may be a wealthy oil mogul; his friend Alex Cutter hatches a plan to tease out a confession by threatening blackmail; Cutter's wife Mo (Lisa Eichhorn) keeps much of her thoughts and her sadness to herself behind a fixed but fragile smile. John Heard's Cutter is a singular creation - an eye, arm and leg lost in Vietnam, he seems initially like a wildly provocative, undisciplined drunk, but it becomes clear that there's some methodical artifice to this madness, even if the only rational outcome of it is self-obliteration. The film hints at past entanglements, crimes and lost possibilities, suggesting that the outrage of Vietnam was only the most visible manifestation of the mess at home. And the outstanding ending delivers an emblematic charging toward justice on a white horse, foretold early in the film, but accompanied by pervasive confusion of a precisely plotted kind only achievable through immaculate creative clarity. When the mogul is finally directly confronted, there's a direct line from his chilling response - "What if I did?" - to (say) assertions about one's ability to stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and kill someone without losing voters; the stage is larger, but the challenge to stability and morality (or what's still intact of both) is the same. The main difference, beyond even what the film foresaw, is that our own rampaging mogul would hijack so much of Cutter's self-justifying paranoia, without any of its moral purpose.

Scott LeBrun This adaptation of the Newton Thornburg novel "Cutter and Bone" stars Jeff Bridges, John Heard, and Lisa Eichhorn in its principal roles. It's a sad, cynical story of friendship and loss, in a post- Vietnam, post-Watergate America. Bridges is Richard Bone, an unambitious but likable young stud currently earning a living as a yacht salesman. Heard is his friend Alex Cutter, a bitter, confrontational, and disabled veteran. And Eichhorn is Maureen, the despairing alcoholic whom they both love. One night, when his car breaks down in an alley, Richard sees a man disposing of a body. That man just might be filthy rich J.J. Cord (Stephen Elliott), and Alex relentlessly prods Richard into doing something with this knowledge."Cutter's Way" is more of a character study than anything else, taking a blunt, unflinching look at our three flawed protagonists. Cutter bemoans the lack of "heroes" in the world, and doesn't approve of the way that Bone avoids commitments. Maureen doesn't get much love or affection from her husband Cutter, and finds herself drawn to the more easygoing Bone. All three of the leads are impressive, especially Eichhorn. But it's often Heard that steals the show; his Cutter is a force of nature much of the time, although the character is not without humanity.Czech-born director Ivan Passer gives us a film that is noticeably low key and slowly paced, so it won't appeal to all tastes. The main draw really is the acting, although it's commendable that the story isn't patently predictable. It's up to us to decide if Cord really is guilty of the crime.The offbeat music score by Jack Nitzsche (reminiscent of his music for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" at times) and the gorgeous photography of various Santa Barbara locations are a big plus. Also among the supporting cast are Ann Dusenberry, Arthur Rosenberg, and Nina van Pallandt; look for Billy Drago in a bit as a garbageman.Fairly compelling stuff, with some truly sobering moments.Seven out of 10.

chaos-rampant How many movies can you name where a very grizzly Ahabian figure, peg leg eye patch and all, prowls the seemy backalleys and streets of Los Angeles trying to pin a gruesome murder to a powerful oil baron? The movie starts with very direct Moby-Dick references, Cutter, the one-legged veteran back from Vietnam with scars to last him a lifetime, refers to Bone as Ishmael and the small bar they meet is called The Encantado, before it segues into a pattern of various 70's crime/noirish diversions to very basic human questions, life and death, pain and loss. Cutter is convinced the oil baron is the man they're looking for, the wealthy upper-class who is above justice and above reproach, yet the movie proves mercifully ambiguous, wonderfully 70's in that aspect.Cutter and Bone never know for sure and neither do we, but at some point it stops to really matter. The movie is not really a whodunit not because we never discover who done it but because we don't care, the movie doesn't care, because at some point Cutter and Bone, lower-class thirtysomethings with broken lives, nowhere to go, and their friendship permanently shattered by something that involved Bone and Cutter's wife, barge into JJ Cord's mansion uninvited, and somehow, in a strange quiet almost surreal way, one-legged Cutter is suddenly riding a white horse through the gardens in a frenzy, stomping party guests and upturning tables in his furious path, like he's back in the Vietnam jungle and running not away from something like enemy soldiers will run from enemy fire but towards it in a final mad dash, and out of the bushes and trees of JJ Cord's mansion emerges Cutter's Way, the movie now pure sublime and primeval, going out in a final upflare of stubborn and dying revenge.Cutter confronts JJ Cord and when he puts on his mirror shades, we understand that we're looking at the personification of Uncle Sam, so that he may not be guilty for that one girl's murder but he's guilty for something, and more, that Cutter is there to strike not at the mysterious old man, but through him, to strike "...all that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick [...] and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him". Perfect. Even Apocalypse Now didn't transfigure the enigma that lies in the heart of its literary source in a way quite as faithful simple and effective.The powerful thematic content and the subtle-but-not-so-subtle way Ivan Passer handles it is one thing Cutter's Way does right. The movie is fierce gritty and stubborn, like its halfmad protagonist striking in fits of rage the air with his cane and shooting holes in the sea, but it's also quiet bittersweet and tender and takes its time to get where it needs to. I like how the crime mystery slowly fades and dissolves in the haze of the hot summer Los Angeles afternoon before it's allowed to become tedious or an end in itself and instead we get to spend time out in the pier or inside cramped living rooms with the heavy curtains pulled, there are empty whiskey bottles on the floor and a soft jazz tune is playing on the pickup. It's like the movie is whispering to itself "there's still time" or maybe "we still have one last night left", because we're looking at people broken who can never be made right again, the pieces were cracked long ago or in faraway places and they can't be found again, so there is this one last night left for everyone. When Bone makes love to Cutter's wife, the one woman he could never conquer, she breaks down and cries. There's not much joy here, but sadness and regret is mixed with a feverish desire for doing things now, even when it's too late.

merklekranz "When I gotta go, I go". "On point, only place to be, Purple Heart land". "Toyota's a shitty car anyway". "What do they call you cats these days anyway"? "Cutter's Way" is perhaps the most quotable movie ever made. John Heard's Cutter is absolutely unforgettable. "The world lacks heroes" is his ultimate statement, and perfectly describes what drives the movie to greatness. Every character in "Cutter's Way" revolves around Cutter and his passionate pursuit of justice. Bone is merely swept along, in this rising tide of enthusiasm. The ending is one of the most genuine conclusions ever put on film. If you only see one DVD. See "Cutter's Way". It is a masterpiece. - MERK