Cutter's Way – review (original) (raw)

Here is a movie to which the response can't be: "They don't make them like that any more", because they really didn't make them like that at the time. This 1981 indie gem by Czech-born director Ivan Passer is a complex, unclassifiable, unlocatable drama. Is it a buddy movie? A mystery thriller? A noir? A metaphysical essay on the return from Vietnam? Jeff Bridges is Bone, a laidback womanising guy who works at a marina; his buddy Cutter – superbly played by John Heard – is disabled, alcoholic Vietnam veteran in a co-dependent relationship with Mo (Lisa Eichhorn). Cutter is galvanised when he thinks a wealthy local has carried out a murder, and does his best to involve Bone in his fanatical investigations. Cutter could be right, or his fixation could be a final expression of existential boredom and despair, a frantic search for meaning and justice in a leisured, prosperous American society in which Cutter's traumas and sacrifices on the field of battle are meaningless. The film moves with an easy uncoerced swing: moment by moment, scene by scene, we are unsure what to think or where we are going. It is a fascinating, organically grown drama. The ending is spectacular, as grippingly strange as the rest. Jeff Bridges fans may wonder what it would be like if he had been cast as Cutter.