The overlooked 1981 neo-noir Cutter’s Way is a paranoid thriller framed by post-Vietnam War disillusionment. It features an early Jeff Bridges and career-best performances by John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn.
Bridges plays Bone, an aimless and hedonist slacker, bumming around the Santa Barbara yacht harbor. Bone’s buddie Cutter (Heard), a disabled Vietnam War vet, and Cutter’s wife Mo (Eichhorn) are decidedly not Yacht Club material. Cutter has been physically and emotionally scarred by the war, and Mo is damaged by what Cutter has become (a bitter drunk).
One night, Bone thinks he has witnessed the dumping of a murder victim. As he pokes around, he finds himself framed for the murder.
Bone becomes understandably engrossed and comes to a conspiracy theory, but then the stakes keep going up and up. Bone is a witness and then a suspect; Cutter is a kibitzer and then a victim. Cutter becomes even more obsessed than is Bone.
The marginalized trio finds itself in the tony Spanish-style clubs and posh haunts of Santa Barbara’s rich elite. From its beginning at the yacht harbor and the Founder’s Day Parade, Santa Barbara is a core ingredient in Cutter’s Way, and it’s still the best film set in Santa Barbara.
Cutter’s Way perfectly captures the post-Viet Nam cynicism that was an ideal petri dish for escalating paranoia. The screenplay was adapted by Jeffrey Alan Fishkin from a novel by Newton Thornburg.
Director Ivan Passer came out of the Czech New Wave (Intimate Lighting) to work in the US (fifteen features including award-winning Haunted Summer and Robert Duvall’s Stalin). My favorite Passer film is Cutter’s Way.
I watched it again recently and it still holds up; you can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. It has also been featured on Turner Classic Movies.
