John Heard

(On Cable TV, March 2022) As TCM’s Eddie Muller is fond of saying (especially in introducing his neo-noir line-up), the difference between detective stories and film noir is that, in noir, the investigation is just as likely to be about the detective as the murderer or the victim. So it is that the crime in Cutter’s Way is almost inconsequential when measured against the character investigating it. Coming from the last echoes of New Hollywood, it’s a film that uses a murder mystery as a pretext to lash out about the previous decade. Our protagonist, a maimed Vietnam veteran (John Heard), has had enough of it all, and when he gets wind of a local tycoon having murdered a young girl, he’ll stop at nothing to get some misplaced justice, including dragging his friend (Jeff Bridges) in the mess. In the tradition of those 1970s gritty, downbeat thrillers, don’t expect much satisfaction out of the resolution. But what the film lacks in satisfying narrative expectations it makes for in characterization, anger and off-beat choices. It’s certainly not for everyone—If you’re talking early-1980s neo-noir, I’ll watch Body Heat a few more times before revisiting Cutter’s Way nihilism. But it’s certainly evocative of a certain era in American cinema, and it does so under the guide of a far more straightforward genre premise.