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Cutter's Way

Cutter's Way

Drama · Mystery · Thriller · 1981

Alex Cutter is a boozy, belligerent and deeply cynical Vietnam veteran whose encounter with a landmine during the war has left him minus an eye, a leg and an arm. When his drifter playboy friend Richard Bone is falsely accused of murder, Cutter sets out for revenge in his own inimitable style.

Movie details

Cutter's Way

“Cutter does everything his way. Fighting. Loving. Working. Tracking down a killer.”

1981 Drama · Mystery · Thriller 1h 49m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.8 / 10

8K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

92 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

70 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.4 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Alex Cutter is a boozy, belligerent and deeply cynical Vietnam veteran whose encounter with a landmine during the war has left him minus an eye, a leg and an arm. When his drifter playboy friend Richard Bone is falsely accused of murder, Cutter sets out for revenge in his own inimitable style.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Cutter's Way?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Ivan Passer

Written by

Jeffrey Alan Fiskin

Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges

Richard Bone

John Heard

John Heard

Alex Cutter

Lisa Eichhorn

Lisa Eichhorn

Maureen Cutter, 'Mo'

Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott

J. J. Cord

Arthur Rosenberg

Arthur Rosenberg

George Swanson

Nina van Pallandt

Nina van Pallandt

Woman in the Hotel

Ann Dusenberry

Ann Dusenberry

Valerie Duran

Court is in session

Put Cutter's Way on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Auteur Devotee

“Form is the argument.”

Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Technique in search of a pulse.”

Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.