The feel of this movie is pretty unusual. They leave a lot for the viewer to figure out
on their own. Like the relationship
between the three leads isn’t spelled out and it took me a while to catch on that
Cutter and Mo are husband and wife and Bone is their buddy who stays with them
sometimes and he and Mo sorta have a thing for each other. It seems complicated.
I don’t think we’re told how Bone and Cutter became friends
in the first place either. They’re a bit
mismatched which gives their rapport some serious tension. Bone is handsome, neatly dressed, sleeps
round a ton and is more discrete while Cutter is a war vet missing an arm, a
leg and an eye, is constantly scruffy, audacious and blurts out every thought in
his head. They see something in each
other though and are almost like two halves that together make one full remarkable
human. In that sense they remind me of
the killers from In Cold Blood.
All three like to booze a lot and that could be another
uniting factor. Misery loves company and
they know they can drown out their personal demons in each other’s presence
without being judged. They can be their true
selves with an unspoken understanding and acceptance.
These characters are already interesting with enough tragic
drama between them but then this conspiracy theory gets thrown in and it goes
off in a different dark direction. We don’t
know for sure that Cord perpetrated any crimes at all so to go down a rabbit
hole where Cutter conducts his own investigation, uses blackmail and plots
against this man is truly insane. And it’s
even weirder that Cutter takes on this cause when it’s his buddy who got unexpectedly
swept up in a fucked up situation. However,
Bone doesn’t remain on the sidelines. He
doesn’t know what to believe so he keeps going back and forth on joining Cutter
and rejecting his crazy bullshit.
The film takes you on a bizarre journey that flirts with
film noir but doesn’t fully commit. It
rides the line just enough so you don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Is Cord an evil person doing evil acts or is
it coincidence or a total misunderstanding?
It’s all open to interpretation.
Everyone does a fantastic acting job here but the definite standout
is John Heard as Cutter. He’s like a
pirate with his missing limbs, eyepatch, scraggly voice, mysterious ramblings and
cocksure attitude. Heard completely
transforms into this character and had to internalize the rage this guy was
carrying around with him for who knows how long. He’s repulsive, bombastic, impulsive, charismatic,
sad, sarcastic, venomous and damn intriguing.
It’s an incredible performance.
Newton Thornburg wrote the novel this was based on (called “Cutter
and Bone”) and I wonder how faithful this adaptation is. I might have to check that out one day. He’s only had one other book turned into a
picture, Beautiful Kate, which came out in 2009.
Ivan Passer (Silver Bears, Haunted Summer) directs
and I haven’t seen anything else he’s done.
He presents the events very matter-of-fact without tipping his hand too
much. There isn’t a specific visual
flair to the film but it’s all put together perfectly fine. It’s the handling of the material that shows
nice restraint and makes you feel kinda helpless. Like these characters are already drifting aimlessly
and then they dig a strange and scary hole for themselves.
This is a fascinating little picture that makes me
think. Pieces of it stick with me. I honestly don’t know if I believe Cutter but
at the same time I want him to be right.
He obviously needs that validation in his life and to a lesser extent so
does Bone. Someone really did kill a
woman and someone’s gotta pay. Cutter
will make sure of that.
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