Cutter's Way

[kevinknapman]

Currently showing at the BFI as part of the Jeff Bridges season and well worth checking out (hurry though, it ends Thursday. Cutter's Way that is. The Jeff Bridges season runs the whole month).

Cutter's Way is a film I've loved since I was a teenager when I caught it on TV. Along with Winter Kills and The Last Picture Show. So it's fair to say I'm a longtime Jeff Bridges fan. Whichever one of those I watched first was no doubt because of seeing Tron as a kid.

One of the finest thrillers of that era, it actually downplays the importance of the murder mystery at it's centre. Preferring instead to function as a character study of three different damaged characters. Bone (Jeff Bridges), the emotionally crippled commitment-phobe who witnesses a crime but doesn't want to get involved, Cutter (John Heard) the physically crippled Vietnam vet who wants justice and revenge and Mo (Lisa Eichhorn) Cutter's abused alcoholic wife.
The identity of the murderer is immaterial. Initially believed to be an Oil tycoon, Bone never wants to commit to a positive identification but Cutter doesn't care either way. The tycoon is a symbol of all that's wrong in America post-war and as far as Cutter is concerned responsible for Vietnam and all that happened in it (including his own injuries), getting rich off of the back of it and continuing to do so. Even at the end there's a certain ambiguity as to whether the tycoon actually did it.
As a result I'm sure a lot of people might find Cutter's Way unsatisfying as it doesn't offer any clear cut answers or resolution. It also ends abruptly, which may disappoint some. Though as the film on the whole is a study of someone unable to commit to anything (it even has an amusing nod to that other famous character that hesitates to commit, Hamlet, when Cutter refers to two bar patrons as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern), that it chooses to end exactly at the moment Bone finally decides to do something is quite perfect.

Ivan Passer's direction is excellent and it's a shame he never did anything as noteworthy again. The script is wonderful with Heard getting some great lines "Don't ever orgy with a pet monkey. The little fuckers bite" and Eichhorn getting some choice put-downs too. I also really liked the offbeat Jack Nitzsche score too, played on glass instruments, a musical saw and electric strings.
Best of all though is the acting. Jeff Bridges is at his most annoyingly handsome and effortlessly charming but also managing to give the sense of a man who knows that he can only get by on those traits for so long. Lisa Eichhorn is incredibly moving as Cutter's downtrodden and defeated wife, managing to convey a great deal of sadness and regret without seeming to have to do a great deal. John Heard's Cutter is the role you'll remember the most. From his awkward uncomfortable first appearance, using racial slurs in front of the black patrons in a bar, through his amusing ability to play on his veteran status after an altercation with an angry neighbour to the climax which sees him becoming the 'champion on a white charger', Heard is a compelling screen presence, the angry and often irritating reminder of a lost war. Such a shame he's not had a role as good as this since. He's such a great character actor so it's disappointing that he's still best known as MacCauley Culkin's dad in Home Alone.
There are also some fine support roles. Stephen Elliot's menacing almost silent role (until the last scene) as the Oil man and murder suspect, Arthur Rosenberg's slightly buffoonish friend of Cutter and Bone offering some fine comic moments (riding during a parade George:"How do I look?" Cutter: "Like a fat man on horse") and Anne Dusenberry's cute turn as the victim's sister (though sadly disappearing from the film near the end for no apparent reason).

Cutter's Way is essential viewing for anyone who thinks that the 70's was the golden age of Hollywood (though released in 81, Cutter's Way is very much of that era) and I urge anyone in London to go check it out before it goes again.

[prettyxcool]

Well said KK. I enjoyed this too.

OMG, forgotten how yummy Jeff Bridges is, and what a brilliant actor. Beautiful Lisa Eichhon was haunting as the long suffering wife of John Heard's crippled veteran, both also brilliant performances. I enjoyed this slow, murder mystery, just focusing on the three leads, and we are left hanging at the end, with a really powerful climax. 9/10

[TheDude]

Yeah, that was a real treat yesterday, and well worth getting up early to see it. I didn't realise the guy at the desk was assistant editor of Empire! Nice to get an introduction from him, and a free copy of the new issue! First time seeing Cutter's Way, and I feel like I want to see it again asap, which is always a good sign, so I must echo KK's recommendation to go and catch it at the BFI.