CUT AND RUN

Cut and Run

CUT AND RUN would have fit perfectly into the Cannon line-up of VHS releases. It is a low-budget actioner, high on the splatter, light on narrative - in other words, the kind of film Cannon made their name releasing - and is perfectly serviceable as such. It has a rather strange pedigree. It began life as a Wes Craven project called MARIMBA before being handed over to Ruggero Deodato, who reworked the script completely and filmed it in 1985. It was released in both soft and hard versions, the former watering down the film's considerable graphic violence. That was the version I first saw when I was a teen. Watching the uncut release just the other day, I can say the hard version brings nothing new to the film at all, minus a few extra moments of savagery.


Ruggero Deodato Cut and Run

Like most low budget Italian genre fare, CUT AND RUN feels pieced together from bits of better films. It's most obvious inspiration is APOCALYPSE NOW. It's marginal storyline features a group of journalists who travel to the Columbian jungle to track down a rogue Colonel everyone believed to be dead. The Colonel, a disgraced military ingenue turned right hand man to the Reverend Jim Jones, is suspected of being the mastermind behind a series of brutal drug cartel murders. As well as procuring an interview with the Colonel, the journalists, a reporter named Fran and her cameraman Mark, are trying to track down Tommy, the missing son of a media executive. As they arrive via plane, the compound they are entering is attacked by the Colonel's strike squad, a group of natives led by the feral, half-naked Michael Berryman, and they find themselves stranded with the compounds only survivor, Ana, Tommy's love interest. As our intrepid reporters and their comely companion make their way through the jungle in search of their targets, all kinds of nastiness occurs, eventually bringing them face-to-face with the mad Colonel and his loyal tribe of jungle savages.


Cut and Run

That synopsis might sound interesting. Exciting even. Unfortunately, the film isn't really that thrilling. Most of the time, CUT AND RUN is on autopilot. It starts off with a gruesome raid on a riverside drug compound, a bloodbath that includes a few graphic rapes and beheadings, but from that point on, the film staggers from plot point to plot point with just enough mayhem to keep your itchy trigger finger from pressing the fast forward button. Deodato tries to inject some human drama into the piece but the situations he concocts are terribly cliched and the acting - especially the performances of Willie Aames and the beautiful Valentina Forte - isn't good enough to carry it through. But the film manages a certain low-budget charm despite all the tedium and the action scenes, when they do arrive, are decent enough that you might find yourself not minding the long stretches of 'nothing much' between them.


Cut and Run Deodato

As for the level of violence in the film... Deodato is no stranger to cinematic portrayals of human depravity. CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK, THE WASHING MACHINE and LAST CANNIBAL WORLD all contain graphic, sometimes nauseating, violence and CUT AND RUN carries on Deodato's tradition of executing violent set-pieces with a minimal amount of fuss. Few filmmakers take such a "point and shoot" approach to violence as Deodato. The bloodletting in his films is made so disturbing by his seeming refusal to dramatize it to the point of losing it's edge. While Fulci and Argento were both capable - Argento less so now than then - of creating gruesome, agonizing set-pieces, both directors filmed their violent acts very cinematically. Deodato films them no differently than anything else. There are no real lingering close-ups of spurting wounds or whirly-bird camera movements. There is just the violent act, shown as emotionally distanced as it can be. The violence in Argento's films thrills. The violence in Fulci's films repulses. But the violence in Deodato's films actually hurts to watch. There is a graphic bisection midway through this film that remains one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen in a horror film. That it happens to one of the film's most despicable characters is fitting, but it is a testament to Deodato's handling of violence that when the act is happening, you can't help but feel pity for the miserable bastard.


Cut and Run

I find it hard to begrudge this film of a recommendation. It is indeed slow and talky, mostly dull and frankly unbelievable, but there are quite a few good moments buried beneath all of that. This was the film that made Deodato a bankable commodity again after the notoriety of both CANNIABL HOLOCAUST and HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK. If anything, it deserves some credit for that. While Deodato has never come close to matching the impact of either of those two films, he did manage to churn out quite a few entertaining flicks since CUT AND RUN. DIAL HELP, a giallo fantasico featuring a possessed, killer phone, and PHANTOM OF DEATH, a gialloesque Jekyll and Hyde tale, are both immensely entertaining and THE WASHING MACHINE, a gory erotic giallo that comes awfully close to greatness, would have likely never happened had CUT AND RUN not been made. For that, the film deserves a bit of respect.


Recommended.