Working as an enforcer for the Irish mob in Chicago, Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) has pretty much seen it all. This time around, he's got a job that even he couldn't quite plan for. With some help from three young Irish enforcers, Nick must head to Kansas City to deal with Mary Ann (Gene Hackman), a mobster himself running a crooked slaughterhouse with some secrets. Several other enforcers have been sent with lousy results. The last one? Mary Ann had him ground up and sent back to Chicago as sausage (quite literally, he's sausage links). Nick isn't one to shy away from a job -- any job -- so he travels to Kansas City and get the $500,000 that Mary Ann owes the Irish mob. The experienced enforcer doesn't quite know everything though, finding upon arrival that even Mary Ann has some tricks up his sleeve.
This is truly a flick that defies just about any description I can come up with. From director Michael Ritchie, I figured it would be a pretty straightforward, enjoyable gangster flick starring the always reliable, always tough Lee Marvin. It's an apt description to a point, but it's also so much more, and for the good. Because it covers so much ground and does it effectively, calling it a crime thriller with pulpy undertones on top of an out of left field love story with an almost existential feel to the fast-paced story that an art house film might be proud of is....very fair. It's all of that, and it does it well. Impressive considering the flick only runs 88 minutes and never really slows down. I was expecting one movie and got another instead, for the better.
Let's start with probably the most normal thing about 'Cut,' and that's Lee Marvin (a favorite here at Just Hit Play). The description of his part sounded a little bit like Point Blank, and at it's most basic, it is. He does the tough guy anti-hero part like nobody's business. A former Marine, he handles the action scenes expertly and capably, but he's not a one-trick pony. Marvin can deliver a snappy one-liner with the best. His Nick Devlin has quite the past (hinted at more than shown), but it's a great lead character. How about Gene Hackman as a villain? Sounds good, right? How about an over the top villain named Mary Ann who oozes sleaze and slime and runs a corrupt slaughterhouse where you can buy top choice meat.....and drugged up young women sold as slaves? Yep, that's a good villain if there ever was. Hackman's part isn't gigantic, but every time he is on-screen, you can't help but love to hate him.
So where to start in general? There's a lot of worthy jumping off points, but the obvious is the opening credits, a montage of the inner workings of Mary Ann's slaughterhouse. Uh-oh, is that a shoe...and then a man being ground up? Watch it HERE. It's an unsettling, realistic opening that certainly sets the tone. Not subtle by any means, things get switched up then in the next scene as Nick, three enforcers and a driver drive to KC in a montage scene reminiscent of a French art house crime thriller. It's quite the change of pace from one scene to the next. Things get ratcheted up then when we meet Mary Ann, Nick walking through his display barn only to see naked young women (heavily drugged) lying in cattle pens for buyers to purchase. The meeting between Nick and Mary Ann (again, why the woman's name?) is perfect, two sides testing the other for all they're worth. Some of these transitions could be kind of jarring if handled incorrectly, but Ritchie manages to make this mess of a story work, and work well.
It's the balance that works. I wouldn't have expected an endearing love story to develop between Marvin's Nick and a young woman he rescues from Mary Ann's sale, Poppy, played in her screen debut by Sissy Spacek. She comes from a sheltered past where she was raised to be sold as a slave, but she's managed to rise above it -- focusing on the simple positives of life -- and finds an ally in Nick, her rescuer. Having rescued her, Nick buys a handful of different dresses and takes her out for an expensive dinner. While everyone else stares at her revealing dress, Nick -- ever the gentleman -- stares them down, teaching her which silverware to use and when. It's almost surreal in its oddness. I make no bones about my dislike of force-feeding a love story into a movie that doesn't need it, but when handled correctly (like here), it's hard to make any complaints.
Then there's the more pulpy crime stuff I expected going in. That's not a negative by any means. It is a tough guy film and that means a whole lot of crazy 1970s action. Probably the most memorable scene is a confrontation at a crowded country fair, Nick running with Poppy from Mary Ann's small army of overall-wearing, shotgun-wielding country boys. The capper is a gem, the duo running in an immense open wheatfield from a thresher. Watch it HERE. The big blowout is saved for last, Nick -- using a submachine gun -- and his remaining enforcers approaching Mary Ann's farm fortress through a field of sunflowers. It's a tense, well-choreographed sequence that sets up the actual finale quite well.
As for the rest of the cast, Gregory Walcott is quite memorable as Weenie, Mary Ann's thuggish, perverted brothers, and Angel Tompkins as Clarabelle, Mary Ann's wife who has a past with Nick. William Morey (in his only role) plays Shay, Nick's driver who's worked many times in the past with him, with Clint Ellison, Howard Platt and Les Lannom as the young enforcers. This is one epically weird movie overall, but I loved just about everything it offers. It most definitely is weird so know what you're getting into, but I highly recommend this one.
Prime Cut (1972): *** 1/2 /****
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