User Reviews

This movie is beautifully shot with a great score that sounds unlike any other score I've ever heard. Then you have a great performance from John Heard and a great screenplay that obviously had a tremendous novel behind it.

If you like those gritty late 70s early 80s California noir movies like Straight Time, Who'll Stop The Rain and Chinatown, this is as good as any of those. I have just watched it and I don't think I will forget it anytime soon. It's packed with memorable moments and fully-developed characters.

They don't make movies like this anymore. It makes me wonder what Jeff Bridges thinks about on the set of Iron Man 2 - I've never been a huge fan but the guy did a string of great dramas in the 80s like Fabulous Baker Boys, American Heart and this. He must be thinking "what happened to all those good scripts that used to be knocking around??"

The title "Cutter's Way" is a reference to the main character, Alexander Cutter, perhaps cinema's all-time best antihero. John Heard plays the difficult role of an angry Vietnam veteran who returned from what he now regards as a meaningless war minus an arm, an eye, and a leg. He hates the fat cats-feeling that they conned him and others into patriotically serving while they stayed home, and he resents his best friend Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) who avoided the war and continues to avoid any involvement or commitment. Commitment is Alexander Cutter's one remaining virtue, when he sets his sights on taking down an arrogant oil tycoon who has gotten away with murdering a 17 year old cheerleader, he stubbornly refuses to give up this mission and insists on doing it his way.

Heard should have gotten the Best Actor Oscar in 1981 (it went to Henry Fonda for "On Golden Pond") but "Cutter's Way" was not popular with critics and viewers so Heard was not even nominated. It is an amazing performance as Heard must win audience sympathy for a character who is not only unpleasant, but terribly abusive to everyone- especially his wife and his only two remaining friends. But he earns our admiration with his final act as a knight (on a white horse) who gallops into danger to avenge his wife's murder.

With this Cutter is finally revealed as a romantic who is willing to back up his angry words and seemingly empty threats. His anger is over more than his wasted wartime sacrifice. He feels frustration and confusion because while he has remained the same, the world has changed around him in ways antithetical to his beliefs (can you identify with that?). He recognizes that he has become irrelevant to this world but is not going out until he has made a last stand. His commitment ultimately gets Bone to take his first moral stand and finish what his friend started, doing it "Cutter's Way".

Like "Fat City" (another of Jeff Bridges' early films) "Cutter's Way" is more appreciated now than at the time of its release. In part this is because both of these films have held up very well, if anything their political messages are even more relevant today. Thematically "Cutter's Way" is a political film-both anti-war and anti-power; very much in the tradition of "Chinatown" and the world of Raymond Chandler adaptations.

This film is essentially a character study with an expressionistic ending. Most action/adventure fans will find it way too slow and cerebral for their tastes. The acting and the themes are its strength, the contrived story is a non-fatal flaw. The multi-dimensionality of Cutter, Bone, and Cutter's wife Mo (an extraordinary performance by Lisa Eichhorn) are carefully crafted and revealed by director Ivan Passer. Cutter's other remaining friend George (Arthur Rosenberg) is equally well crafted but more secondary to the story.

A fifth character (the dead cheerleader's older sister played by Ann Dusenberry) appears to be a victim of the post-production process as she simply disappears without explanation about 20 minutes before the film's end. Normally the absence of a supporting character would go unnoticed but Dusenberry had done such a nice job developing this character (maximizing what little she was given to work with) that the absence is glaring. Contemporary audiences will see a lot of Dominique Swain in Dusenberry. They not only look enough alike to be sisters but they have the same confident flare to their acting style. Passer had to work hard to keep Dusenberry reined in but succeeded in getting a nice restrained performance from her, her high intensity peeks through just enough to convey that there is more to her character than meets the eye.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Alex Cutter (John Heard) is a drunken disabled war veteran. His wife Mo (Lisa Eichorn) is also a drunken mess. Their best friend Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is a witness to a murder, and he thinks that the killer is this powerful oil tycoon JJ Cord (Stephen Elliott). Cutter refuses to let it go, and together with the victim's sister Valerie Duran (Ann Dusenberry) harasses Bone to get JJ.

The main drawback is that their plan was never going to work. If they really thought about it, they would see it as a fool's errand. The plan actually insulates JJ from any testimony from Bone. The plan actually helps JJ.

However we know Cutter is a drunk bastard. So I'm willing to believe that he would come up with a poorly constructed plan. It's the acting that is so superior in this. John Heard really goes all out, and Jeff Bridges' calmness makes them the perfect duo. I just love how crazy John Heard gets. He really shines.

This movie is very much a product of the time and place from which it originates. Released in 1981, the original novel ("Cutter and Bone") was published in the Seventies and the film version positively oozes the cynicism and self-absorption that permeated America in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate.

The plot is centered around crippled Vietnam vet Alex Cutter (John Heard), his best friend Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges), and Cutter's wife Mo (Lisa Eichman) who live in sunny Santa Barbara. Cutter is drink-sodden, embittered, and cynical due to his war injuries and his conviction that life is meaningless. Mo is also lost in alcoholism and terminal disconnection from her husband, Bone is a low-rent pretty boy hustler who unintentionally witnesses the body of a cheerleader being dumped in a back-alley trash can. This dysfunctional trio team up with the victim's sister to expose the oil tycoon whom they believe is the killer.

All three lead actors offer strong portrayals of people who deeply care for each other but are too wounded to really connect. They are thrust into a situation where each one of them is forced to take a stand and fight for justice, friendship, or love. The dialogue is absolutely razor-sharp and the myth of America as a a classless land of equal opportunity is torn to shreds. All in all, a gripping, blackly funny, and heartbreaking gem.

I stumbled upon this movie at the Nickelodeon on Cape Cod the year of its release...at a time when VCR's and DVD's weren't a part of our culture...when you had to travel to obscure and far-out theaters to see obscure and far-out films during the fading window of opportunity offered as its limited run at the movie house. What a gem. I was instantly riveted by the story and the classic performances that brought it to life. The pathetic human condition personified in Cutter, Bone, and Mo is so exquisitely rendered as to be tragic...only salvaged by the clear-eyed wit and insight of John Heard's Cutter and the tempered and logical cynicism and indifference offered up by Bone(Jeff Bridges)as the balance that only these begrudging friends could provide each other. Lisa Eichorn's character(Mo) exhibits equal measures of the qualities both her male couterparts have and her subtle performance points up the conflict she feels in simultaneously rejecting and craving their opposing energies. The scene where she chews them both out for their selfish and naive plot and their spirited responses seems to spill from their beings as genuine emotion...not written dialogue...and it still sends chills through me...very powerful...and the scene where she is made painfully aware of Bone's incurable drive to bed women as she falls prey to his momentary sympathies ..when coupled with her husband's(Cutter) inability to give a soft refuge to her is so tragically realistic...tears flow. Everyone's shortcoming's cross-up everyone else's and as the surrealistic climax develops its symbolism and power are Shakespearian. This movie works as a crime thriller, a portrait of the underbelly of American culture most evidenced in its loss of confidence and embrace of cynicism that came to the surface post-Vietnam...but most successfully as a great character-driven love story and tragedy.

This is an excellent movie and one of the most consistently underrated. John Heard has never been better, and he is (alongside the late J.T. Walsh) amongst the most under-appreciated actors ever (one of the few mistakes in 'The Sopranos' was to let him go). However, Jeff Bridges yet again proves his credentials by turning in a beautifully nuanced performance as an unattractive, self-absorbed failed playboy in counterpoint to Heard's righteous crippled Vietnam veteran.

This is a companion piece to 'Chinatown' in its study of corrupt power structures, but is more intimate and believable (and 'Chinatown' is superb). We still wait for its recent equal in the noir stakes.

Cutter's Way is not a perfect film, it meanders at a leisurely pace. The murder mystery is at times a backdrop as we look at a dysfunctional trio living in Santa Barbara in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Parts of the own is still seedy, still a dump. We are yet to enter the excess and glamour of Reaganomics.

Jeff Bridges plays gigolo and boat salesman Richard Bone whose car breaks down and he spots another car in the distance and what appears to be a figure dumping something into a large garbage bin. The car later wildly drives past him.

The next day a woman's body is discovered and because Bone's car is nearby he is dragged in as a suspect.

Alex Cutter is a one eyed, one legged, one armed Vietnam veteran left bitter and twisted after the war. An old buddy of Bone who is one of the few people willing to put up with Cutter's bile and drunken rages. When Bone points out an old wealthy man on a horse during a parade as a potential suspect Cutter is determined to go after his prey and teams up with the dead woman's sister to smoke the culprit out.

Lisa Eichhorn is Cutter's abused, alcoholic wife washed out by him even though she loves him. She is the soul of the film as Cutter and Bone go out to catch their whale. She is not afraid to make barbed comments.

The film explores the underbelly of America, yet the era is no different than today. Local oil magnate JJ Cord played by Stephen Elliott (famous for the banana sparring routine in Beverly Hills Cop) knows his wealth, influence and penchant for violence will protect him.

This was an early performance by the late John Heard and simply one of his best film performances. It is a showy role with allusions to Moby Dick with Cutter as Ahab. Heard should have had a better film career rather than just be known as a careless dad leaving his son, Home Alone twice.

Cutter's Way flopped at the box office when it was released. Despite the comments made by director Ivan Passer it is not really a surprise. It is a very anti commercial film that can leave some of its audience frustrated. Over the years it has gained a cult following.

I admit I am also very puzzled by the huge predominance of positive reviews given to this movie on this site. The only possible explanation I can see for this is a sort of "virtue by association", since certain features of the film (the presence of actors like Bridges, Heard and Eichhorn; the setting in a seedy milieu with the Vietnam War and Watergate lurking vaguely but potently in the spiritual background) do draw it, superficially, into proximity with masterpieces of 70s cinema like certain films by Bob Rafelson or Arthur Penn. But the proximity is indeed superficial and misleading. "Cutters Way" displays certain stylistic and thematic points in common with the profound, structured, satisfying masterpieces of 70s cinema - but the sad fact is that it is itself neither profound, nor structured, nor - for just these reasons - in the least bit satisfying as a film. We are - or should be - all aware of the dangers of praising "ambiguity" as a meritorious quality in a work of art. I'm sorry, but I'm just not convinced by the implied contention - and in most of the reviews here this contention is indeed only IMPLIED, not frankly asserted and argued for - that Passer somehow made a conscious artistic decision to break with conventional structures of plot and narrative here. The fact that we are left, in the end, radically uncertain whether the man Bridges and Heard are pursuing - and whom Bridges presumably actually kills - committed the crime or not cannot seriously be presented as a dramaturgical or moral strength of the film. The vague piece of empty existentialist piety that some of the reviewers come out with - "the film is not about the need to do any particular thing but rather the need to TAKE ACTION per se" - is one of the most repellently ridiculous things I have ever heard. Does this film seriously propose to us that, since society is vaguely rotten and the true "culprits" of this rotten-ness cannot be reached or even clearly identified, we are morally required to break into the houses of random rich people, who look suspiciously content and well-situated, and murder them? I think we do the director a favour if we choose to classify the utter inconclusiveness of the final scenes as an example of the same narrative confusion and sloppiness as, say, the unexplained vanishing, two-thirds of the way through the movie, of an apparently central character: the victim's sister. I honestly don't see how anyone can fail to get the impression that - far from conveying some deep "symbolic meaning" - the final sequences of the movie were just cobbled together in an attempt to close with as many dramatic and emotional images as possible. Certainly, any psychological coherence that the Cutter character might at some point have had is jettisoned in the last five minutes. After being portrayed for an hour and a half as being doggedly and single-mindedly determined to carefully coordinate the exposure of the Cobb character as a murderer, Cutter's "plan" to do so turns out in the end to consist in nothing more than to go hobbling wildly around the man's house, run away from his bodyguards, jump on a horse he finds in his stables, and then fling himself randomly through some French windows, promptly breaking his own neck. I have no idea whether this scene was present in the original novel, but I must honestly say that this risible spectacle of the hero careening wildly through the garden party - emotionally "beefed up" by some cheap and predictable "subjective camera" shots intended to positively FORCE the viewer to identify with Cutter in a way that his actions themselves make it pretty much impossible to do - seems to me a textbook example of directorial desperation and the frantic attempt to give direction and conclusion, by the sheer illusory spectacle of velocity, to a film that really wasn't going anywhere at all. Sorry, but to even vaguely imply that a messy, confusedly pretentious movie like this can be mentioned in the same breath with 70s classics like "The King of Marvin Gardens" or "Night Moves" is to do grave disservice to the memory of 1970s US cinema.

One of my favorite films. I don't have much to add to the positive reviews here except to say that Cutter's Way repeatedly alludes to Herman Melville, especially Moby Dick --

A character explicitly refers to Moby Dick early in the film; Cutter has a false limb, like Captain Ahab; his wife's name is "Mo"; he says, "Thar she blows" when he sees the villain's huge office building; after that part of the pursuit, he angrily shoots at an animal in the water; the whole story takes place in and around boats, and it begins at the "El Encantado" (Melville wrote "The Encantadas, or the Enchanted Isles").

What does all this add up to? I don't know exactly, but this film is an excellent mix of character studies, love stories, and suspense -- with great dialog and performances.

I watch it every few years and am never disappointed, except by the fact that one of the main characters (the sister) suddenly and permanently disappears, as if she'd never been in the movie at all. It's not a great loss, but it's certainly one of the worst continuity errors I know of.

This movie would be a flop without John Heard's masterful performance. Definitely the best I've seen of his many excellent roles.

Jeff Bridges was both irritating and not credible. Partly due to his character and lines, but I thought his performance was poor.

Sadly the ending was not great.

Ivan Passer the director of Cutter's Way, was a Czech film director and screenwriter and friend of eminent Czech director Milos Foreman. His real claim to fame was that he co-wrote some of Forman's earlier Czech films, before both men came to work in America. There the similarities end. Foreman made some classics including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, whilst Passer made a bunch of duds, the best known of which is arguably Cutter's Way.

To read reviewers on these pages comparing this film to 70's classics such as Chinatown, The Parallax View and Night Moves is just breathtakingly laughable. There was a reason United Artists wanted nothing to do with the completed film they received, even changing the title mid-release and that's because they realised they had a giant turkey on their hands.

Passer tries to perhaps best emulate Antonioni's Blow-up in having Cutter, Bone and the infamously disappearing sister Valerie, "investigate" (what ends up being just a clumsy blackmail attempt) the murder of Valerie's sister, which Bone may have witnessed, but, like the characters themselves, there is no compelling reason to care. There's not even an air of mystery surrounding the storyline of this utterly misdescribed as, "thriller". The narrative ends up focusing more on how odious the lead characters are. John Heard's Cutter is just a crippled, embittered, alcoholic Vietnam veteran who beats his long-suffering wife, when not causing mayhem to his neighbours. Bone is just a slacker gigolo, seemingly prepared to bed any woman in his vicinity. Think Seth Rogen trying to be semi-serious in a disinterested manner. And Valerie doesn't seem the least bit perturbed by her sister's demise. She just seems to be along for the ride (until she unexplainably disappears in the third act) and cosying up to Jeff Bridges's Richard Bone.

One of the many problems the script faces as well, is that we are never given any real reason, why the completely mis-matched Cutter and Bone are such supposedly great friends. Throw into this dynamic duo, the oddity represented by Arthur Rosenberg's George Swanson. Again, there is never any reason why this wealthy boat builder/retailer is friends with either of them. He just appears to serve as a functionary to allow certain scenes to occur in the movie.

Don't be fooled. The old truism still applies. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is completely unloved and disowned by its parent studio, then it probably is a duck of a film. This is the reality of Cutter's Way. It ain't no unfairly overlooked classic!

Cutter's Way cannot be overpraised. This movie is a masterpiece of the first order. Ivan Passer, a compatriot of Milos Forman, came to the USA as an experienced Czech movie director. Not unlike Alfred Hitchcock or some German directors 30 years before him, he seems to have made a thorough analysis of the American social conditions and general manners. He then transformed his findings into movies. Two of them I know deal with New York. They are appropriately gritty. The setting of Cutter's way is a Californian beach community for the rich and beautiful – and the movie is appropriately glossy. The whole story takes place in those paradisiac locales. They are presented like an enchanted kingdom, a country of its own.

Under the glossy surface, there is a darker side to the place. There is prostitution, drug abuse and murder. Cutter, living on the fringes of the enchanted kingdom, sees that more clearly than everyone else. He has his own code of chivalry by which he wants to live. He develops conspirational theories and strains to convert them into hard facts. The world around him, populated by indifferent, amoral rich and beautiful people, does not understand him, does not even want to listen, laughs at him. So Cutter mounts a white stallion and rides a charge.

Repeatedly the film slips into surrealistic situations, in which the impression made on the viewers is more relevant than the storyline. This technique was well known in the forties (e.g. in film noir), present day audience are less used to it. In the earlier days of film making, surrealism was created on a soundstage, and the change between reality and "dream" became immediately clear. Passer uses real locations for situations removed from reality – a daring experiment that rewards the viewers with hauntingly beautiful pictures but might also confuse many. The director took this risk and we are rewarded with a magnificent picture about a distinguished slice of America. I predict: Cutter‘s way will one day become an honored classic.

An effectively miserable crime/mystery/thriller movie that effectively updates the film noir for post-Vietnam War-era America. Jeff Bridges is technically the protagonist, but the titular Cutter steals the show, as he's the one who makes this film extra interesting. I've never thought John Heard was a bad actor by any means, but I think this is easily the best performance I've seen of his. He reminded me of gruff Tom Waits, but I don't know exactly what year Waits started using his more distinctive, wild, low/raspy voice, so maybe it's more accurate to say Tom Waits reminds me of John Heard in Cutter's Way.

I don't know overall, though - I think it's a little slow in parts, and I think it has some heavy-handed dialogue that probably spells out some of the themes a little too explicitly. But it's well-made and undeniably works as a dark neo-noir kind of movie, and probably deserves a little more love and attention overall.

Engaging though this movie often is, it suffers from the choice-- either by actor John Heard or director Ivan Passer-- to keep the crippled Vietnam vet at full-tilt anger, his emotional volume perpetually cranked up to 11. John Heard manages to imbue Cutter with a ghostly kind of charm-- the suggestion of what he might have been if war hadn't destroyed him-- but one gets weary waiting for his next nihilistic act. He slaps his wife around, carries a gun, and weaponizes everything-- his car, his crutch, his language and his liquor.

We're supposed to forgive him, to see the lost soul, etc., but he wallows in self-pity, vitriol, and free-floating hostility. His friends tolerate him out of loyalty and guilt, but they're bored by it all, and so was I.

Finding the murderer of a 17-year-old girl is at the core of the plot, but the intensity of the search is almost entirely about the drama between a trio of 30ish friends: Cutter, Cutter's wife (Lisa Eichhorn), and their friend who witnessed the murder, Rich Bone (Jeff Bridges).

Released in 1981, "Cutter's Way" could serve as a requiem for the counterculture that was dismissed with the term "hippie" by a society that could not brook dissent, let alone socialist tendencies. The central trio are erudite and idealistic, qualities that earn them little but trouble. Their amateur attempts to prove that the local wealthy oiligarch (sic) is the murderer cost them dearly.

Speaking of cost, at no point is anything as mundane as income from jobs mentioned. Presumably, veteran disability payments keep Cutter and his wife in liquor and weed, and Rich Bone seems to be named after his parents' affluence, given his wardrobe, Ivy League education, and sleek sailboat.

The film is a disappointment, ultimately, in spite of the talent that went into it, including Eichhorn (who looks broken from first frame to last), Bridges (whose conscience just barely rules his hormones), and, in an impossibly burdensome role, Heard. Had Cutter been given more than one strident note to play-- had he pulled himself together over the worthy cause of solving a senseless and brutal murder-- "Cutter's Way" might have been great.

John Heard is excellent, giving off a feisty performance in the title role of this quite intriguing little thriller. It is a bit too meandering to properly keep up the suspense and thrills, however there are still some moments of excitement, and there are also some interesting philosophies, especially about justice in the world. It only has a very run-of-the-mill mystery driving the plot, but there is still enough to the film for it rise above the norm. Although some aspects of Heard's character are not credible, he is an certainly interesting element, and at the very least, the film manages to end on a powerful note.

John Heard gives an Oscar-caliber performance in Ivan Passer's psychological-thriller. A well-crafted script delivers the goods from start to finish, and Jack Nitzsche's score complements the story beautifully. A must-see for fans of the genre.

Cutter's Way is a serious drama about a war veteran and his various problems. It is similar to Mystic River, another serious drama, in that both of them involve murders that aren't central to the plot. If the point of the film is realism, why include a murder, which is not exactly an everyday occurrence?

The film drags a little, not paced like a murder mystery at all, and frankly I don't go for depressing films like A Simple Plan and Leaving Las Vegas... or the even closer match, Adaptation. But, I have to admit it's a masterpiece. The acting is sensational and it's played very realistically. Nobody is a kung-fu expert. They avoid making the veteran "screwed up but lovable", you know, prison inmates in Hollywood films are always lovable, something which always strikes me the wrong way. And the ending is classic.

Who should see this film:

-- Drama lovers only

-- Anyone who liked Mystic River

-- Action flick guys like me, see it but only on a rainy day. It's not really a murder mystery after all.

I'll give Cutter's Way an 8 out of 10, barely.

I think this movie is overrated, it's not at all "important". as some people seem to believe. It's not all bad though.

I saw this in the theater when it originally came out and wasn't impressed much. The performances are fine, but there is something about it, even after seeing it probably six times over the years, that makes me not give a damn about it. Maybe it's just the general "downer" theme, I don't really know what it is. I'm not a young person who finds movies like "The Godfather" too slow, because they actually tell a story, but this movie seems way too long. Not worth watching again, I don't think I will suddenly say, "Wow, I missed that!", but worth watching at least once.

If anyone ever asks if a mediocre script can be turned into a great movie through the performances of the actors, simply point at Cutter's Way. While Jeff Bridges and John Heard have given other memorable performances, combined with the once in a career performance of Lisa Eichhorn this film rises above itself and achieves a level of success that could otherwise not have been expected. People who view this movie either love it or hate it, but are never indifferent about it. The fact that the movie succeeds even though none of the characters are truly sympathetic is amazing. Heard has the most to work with, playing a badly disfigured VietNam vet with a bad attitude, Bridges gets to be a disinterested con man and scoundrel and Eichhorn plays an alcoholic who has lost her own self esteem. Add Ann Dusenberry as the righteous, but somewhat light headed, sister of a murder victim and you have the makings of a tight thriller built around extraordinary characters. This is definitely one you will want to rent and after you watch it you will want to own it.