With its tremendous sense of time and place, its trio of disillusioned characters and an overriding atmosphere of despair and disaffection, "Cutter's Way" is a powerful and often poignant murder mystery in which paranoia, bitterness and cynicism are never far away.
Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is driving through an alleyway one night when his car stalls and through the rain he sees a man dumping something into a trash can. The man then drives off at speed and after abandoning his broken down vehicle, Bone completes the rest of his journey on foot.
On the following day, the body of a high school cheerleader is found in the alleyway and Bone becomes the chief suspect. After having been questioned by the police, he gets released and later joins his friend Alex Cutter (John Heard) at a street parade where he sees the man that he believes he saw in the alleyway the night before. Bone doesn't know who the man is but crippled Vietnam War veteran Cutter does and immediately wants to follow through on this lead.
J.J.Cord (Stephen Elliott) is a powerful oil tycoon who Cutter has known about for many years. He's aware of some terrible things that he's done in the past and resentful of the fact that people like him don't seem to get punished for their crimes. Cutter learns that Cord's car was found burnt out on the night of the murder and the victim (who was sexually assaulted before being brutally murdered) was last seen near the hotel where Cord was attending a function. These pieces of information are enough to convince Cutter of Cord's guilt and he decides to try to expose him as the culprit.
Cutter and the murdered girl's sister then devise a plan to blackmail Cord. Bone is reluctant to get involved but is eventually (against his better judgement) persuaded to help. The blackmailing scheme doesn't go as planned but Cutter continues with his efforts to bring Cord to justice right up until the movie's excellent conclusion.
Cutter and Bone were part of a generation that, after the idealism of the 1960s , became deeply disenchanted in the 1970s. The ways in which the two men reacted to this situation, however, were quite different. Cutter had lost a leg, an eye and part of one of his arms in the War and returned home angry and bitter and also full of hate for some of the powerful people in society (such as J.J.Cord) who never suffer in the same way that the veterans do. Cutter's ever present fury led to him becoming a volatile alcoholic who became obsessed with satisfying his overpowering need to take his revenge out on Cord who, in his eyes, was the very embodiment of evil and corruption.
Bone by contrast worked as a yacht salesman and was a part time gigolo. His experiences had made him cynical and seriously apathetic. He no longer had any beliefs or commitment to anything and had no desire to challenge anyone with Cord's type of wealth and position.
Cutter's wife Mo (Lisa Eichhorn) had seen her world collapse and had also responded by hitting the bottle. She was tolerant and understood the ferocity of her husband's feelings but her situation had also made her habitually depressed. She cared deeply for both Cutter and Bone but also felt that her existence had become directionless.
The portrayals of Cutter, Bone and Mo are all exceptionally good and leave a lasting impression. Ultimately, it's the performances by Heard, Bridges and Eichhorn and their memorable characters who are so redolent of the time in which they existed, that make this movie a work of considerable substance.
Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is driving through an alleyway one night when his car stalls and through the rain he sees a man dumping something into a trash can. The man then drives off at speed and after abandoning his broken down vehicle, Bone completes the rest of his journey on foot.
On the following day, the body of a high school cheerleader is found in the alleyway and Bone becomes the chief suspect. After having been questioned by the police, he gets released and later joins his friend Alex Cutter (John Heard) at a street parade where he sees the man that he believes he saw in the alleyway the night before. Bone doesn't know who the man is but crippled Vietnam War veteran Cutter does and immediately wants to follow through on this lead.
J.J.Cord (Stephen Elliott) is a powerful oil tycoon who Cutter has known about for many years. He's aware of some terrible things that he's done in the past and resentful of the fact that people like him don't seem to get punished for their crimes. Cutter learns that Cord's car was found burnt out on the night of the murder and the victim (who was sexually assaulted before being brutally murdered) was last seen near the hotel where Cord was attending a function. These pieces of information are enough to convince Cutter of Cord's guilt and he decides to try to expose him as the culprit.
Cutter and the murdered girl's sister then devise a plan to blackmail Cord. Bone is reluctant to get involved but is eventually (against his better judgement) persuaded to help. The blackmailing scheme doesn't go as planned but Cutter continues with his efforts to bring Cord to justice right up until the movie's excellent conclusion.
Cutter and Bone were part of a generation that, after the idealism of the 1960s , became deeply disenchanted in the 1970s. The ways in which the two men reacted to this situation, however, were quite different. Cutter had lost a leg, an eye and part of one of his arms in the War and returned home angry and bitter and also full of hate for some of the powerful people in society (such as J.J.Cord) who never suffer in the same way that the veterans do. Cutter's ever present fury led to him becoming a volatile alcoholic who became obsessed with satisfying his overpowering need to take his revenge out on Cord who, in his eyes, was the very embodiment of evil and corruption.
Bone by contrast worked as a yacht salesman and was a part time gigolo. His experiences had made him cynical and seriously apathetic. He no longer had any beliefs or commitment to anything and had no desire to challenge anyone with Cord's type of wealth and position.
Cutter's wife Mo (Lisa Eichhorn) had seen her world collapse and had also responded by hitting the bottle. She was tolerant and understood the ferocity of her husband's feelings but her situation had also made her habitually depressed. She cared deeply for both Cutter and Bone but also felt that her existence had become directionless.
The portrayals of Cutter, Bone and Mo are all exceptionally good and leave a lasting impression. Ultimately, it's the performances by Heard, Bridges and Eichhorn and their memorable characters who are so redolent of the time in which they existed, that make this movie a work of considerable substance.