Cutter's Way (1981) ........belongs to that unique, specialized genre of films that we always loved from the get-go, but took awhile for the rest of the world to catch up......
We speak of films that went right to the very dark heart of an America ripped asunder by the stench, deep corruption, worsening division and horrific human toll exacted by the Vietnam war.
These films began to hit the mainstream in 1970........campus revolt dramas like "Getting Straight" and "The Strawberry Statement"......and numerous other dramas that displayed the Land Of The Free and Home Of The Brave now under sinister control of the rich, the powerful, and the well connected.
Justice, fair play, morality, decency, the triumph of good over evil........all that stuff went out the window. Malignant, unknowable forces now pulled the country's strings like puppeteers........and they considered the rest of us nothing but pawns in their vast global chess game designed to keep them fat 'n happy.....and forever in charge.
To make these films palatable to movie audiences and not come off like raging political screeds, the films often disguised themselves as dramatic thrillers (such as 'WUSA', 'The Parallax View', 'Who'll Stop The Rain').
But the message always came through loud and clear........the 'Powers That Be' were out to screw you six ways to Sunday, and you'd end up dead if you dared to defy or fight them.
"Cutter's Way", a brilliant, prime example of this genre begins by setting up an unlikely trio of friends eking out a living in wealthy Santa Barbara, California.......Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is a go-with-the-flow marina caretaker and mediocre gigalo to bored matrons. He hangs out with Cutter (an Academy Award worthy John Heard), a deeply embittered, corrosively angry Vietnam vet who's lost an arm, a leg and an eye in combat.
Completing this damaged triumvirate is Cutter's demoralized depressed alcoholic wife Mo (Lisa Eichhorn), often on the receiving end of her husband's rage and abuse.
Bone witnesses the body of a raped and murdered high school girl tossed in a trash can......and thinks the dumper was none other than the town's all-powerful oil magnate J.J. Cord (Stephen Elliot).
This news energizes the ever manic Cutter, who sees McCord as an example of the kind of entitled, evil manipulators who sent him to Vietnam. He seizes the chance to strike back, enlisting Bone and the murdered girl's sister (Ann Dusenberry) in a 'I-Know-What-You-Did' scheme to blackmail McCord with threats of turning him over to the police.
But McCord is no one to trifle with.......and carries with him a long history of crushing and destroying those who cross his path.
We'll not go any farther with the plot description, other than to say you need to see yourself how it all plays out.......and to savor and wonder at Heard's spectacular performance.
And the film's final moment, depending on how the it strikes you, will either leave you infuriated, elated and plain mystified.
That's the mark of a great movie in our humble opinion, so BQ's handing out a rating we haven't awarded since we don't know when......our highest honor, a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDs.
No cinema lover should miss this one.
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