Runtime: 105 minutes
Directed by: Ivan Passar
Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn, Ann Dusenberry, Stephen Elliott
From: United Artists
A very good neo-noir… that I only need to see once. Personally, movies focused on tragic, tremendously flawed characters can be more than worthwhile if done correctly-that doesn’t mean I want to take such a journey often. The movie is centered on Jeff Bridges living with John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn; the trio are alcoholics and what a bombastic character Heard plays. His Alex Cutter is an acidly bitter Vietnam War vet who became physically handicapped; lest you have too much sympathy for Cutter, his first scene involves him casually using the N-word to describe a Black man… who is within earshot. He then doesn’t apologize for the incident; at best you can feel sorry for Cutter but you are not meant to like him.
Ostensibly the film is about Bridges (his character is named RICHARD BONE for some reason) seeing a body dumped into a garbage bin on a rainy night when his Austin-Healy broke down-not a surprise for an old British sports car-and Cutter wants to investigate with the murdered woman’s sister Ann Dusenberry. However, the crux of the focus is the characters and their interaction w/ each other; Bone starts to tire of his increasingly erratic and brash buddy Cutter. As others have duly noted, you probably will be reminded of a certain 90’s movie starring Jeff Bridges…
It's a dark journey straight out of a 70’s film which I was happy to see once; it is incredibly downbeat yet IMO it was not so miserable that it was an unpleasant trip. Bridges and especially Eichhorn deserve their flowers too for their characters that you’ll also be frustrated with due to their occasional narcissistic qualities. However, the pompous, searing, and rage-filled performance from Heard is what Mix in a Jack Nitzsche score, stylized cinematography Jordan Cronenweth which achives a certain aesthetic and the solid direction of Ivan Passar & while it is possible you’ll be turned off by the leads (which isn’t an invalid response, IMO), I was happy to have finally seen the film.
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