Prime Cut

Prime Cut may feature charmingly gravelly Lee Marvin, always brilliant Gene Hackman and Sissy Spacek when she was young and pretty, and its plot may be a turn through an interesting alley in the gangster genre, but it is still essentially a cheesy action movie that settles everything interesting about the story with the same shootouts we've been watching since Edwin Porter dazzled us for 11 minutes in 1903. I like guys in suits from New York collecting debts as much as the next guy, just as said guy and I like guys from New York collecting debts from Confederate neanderthals, and movies from the 1970s right down to the score by Lalo Schifrin. Nonetheless, it is not very fair to be absorbed in a story like this only for director Michael Winner to sit comfortably half-facing us within the confines of auto-pilot genre conventions. Marvin plays a two-dimensional mob enforcer from Chicago sent to Kansas to collect a debt from Hackman's intriguingly characterized meatpacking boss. Spacek debuts as a young orphan sold into prostitution. There are already scores of ways scores of writers and directors could make an instant classic out of this material. There are some fantastically effective scenes in particular, a great deal of which derive from the reason why this otherwise assembly-line dirty-ol'-basterd picture was regarded as notably risqué for its time. The opening credits sequence is a composition of cleverly discreet images depicting the beef slaughtering process, with a very discreet twist. There is a striking portrayal of sex slavery in a scene where Hackman partakes in the auctioning of young women. There is a noted chase scene involving a combine in an open field. There are also fast-sketch expository scenes like one with Hackman and the character Weenie, his brother and right-hand man, where their day-to-day dialogue is interrupted by their sudden urge to rassle, Hackman's accountants making an effort to remain furniture no matter where the fight leads. Marvin's boss in Chicago gives him some back-up muscle in the form of a driver whose life he once saved and three other younger members of the Irish mob. There is a style here that seems to have influenced the chic male-centric palette of Guy Ritchie's thug films. There is a brief scene where one of these baby-faced enforcers makes Marvin meet his mother as they leave Chicago. It is a swift, omniscient and interesting little inference of this character before he becomes another pop-up board for the various sundry bullets he will be obligated to exchange with other pop-up men. A shootout never hurt a great movie, and not too many good ones. But this is one that could have been one of them had it not jumped to the guns so hastily without taking a stab at working out the thematic dilemmas first. The first inclinations when dealing with such a premise would be the themes of man and nature, culture clash, North and South, and other elements that could say a lot about the dual nature leading to opposing means of taking on the same criminal enterprises. Instead, it's simply Marvin the good guy and Hackman the bad guy, and they slice through their respective thickets of underlings until they come face to face, only then addressing the superiority of man over beast with a stunning irony I can only hope was intentional. But I don't think so.

This is one of those rare gems that only "real men" like myself seem to appreciate. While self-indugent in some ways (like can there really be a mob enforcer with a heart of gold?), this film scores solidly enough times to rate top marks. Cool symbolism abounds. Like the role reversal of the evil heartland versus the good guy big city. The good-natured crowd unwittingly cheering a murder attempt by blonde Nordic farmboy killers in overalls. The driving straight into the savage fury of a prairie thunderstorm. Hackman's cynical indifference to the tears of a young farmboy giving up his prize steer to be butchered. The whole combine eats limo scene. The character "Weinie" is a truly original slimeball. And the bad guy's name is Mary Ann? "Prime Cut" is a daring movie, and if somebody lacks the sensibility to understand that, I feel truly sorry for them. (And, yeah, I worked in a slaughterhouse once.)

Classic period hoodlum flick. Lee Marvin at his laconic best with minimal amounts of dialogue from him, and that which is there is monosyllabic. But it is the action that speaks for itself in this film. Admittedly disjointed in plot, the content nonetheless is indicative of the stereotype of the "good ole boy" hoodlum fraternity, and in this respect it does not disappoint. The plot is simplistic, if a little over-produced in places, but the feeling of menace from the key characters never lets up. Marvin is magnificently understated, and the overall effect of this film [if you are into the genre] leaves you satiated. Some excellent performances, particularly from Marvin and surprisingly from Gregory Walcott [Pope in the Eiger Sanction]. Its a good, understated Mob flick for those who enjoy the genre. Those who don't will find it slow, cumbersome and at times self-indulgent, but then that is what makes us all different.....

I saw this for the first time recently. Got pulled into seeing this only cos of Marvin n Hackman. The film is not ur regular gangster or hitman film. It has a different vibe to it. Both the actors gave memorable performances. Hackman's character is despicable wheras Marvin's character is a case study in professionalism. The field chase sequence is noteworthy n the film has a western style showdown.

On the whole Prime Cut is a pretty incoherent film. The story wallows in sleaziness and trashiness, the plot makes little sense, the action set pieces are not really linked together with a meaningful narrative, and there seems to be a gratuitous level of violence and nudity. My first instinct upon watching it was to give it a 1-out-of-10 rating and try to erase it from my memory as swiftly as possible. But the more I thought about the film, the more its guilty pleasures began to win me over. Prime Cut is still trash and still a bad film - I'm not saying otherwise - but it has occasional quirky touches that make it enjoyably bad. And no-one was ever quite as good at playing the tough guy than the archetypal Lee Marvin, whose performance here boosts my rating all the way up to a generous 4! Chicago hired killer Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) is sent down to Kansas to deal with a crook who has let power go to his head and stolen money from his Mob bosses - 500 grand, in fact. When he arrives, Devlin discovers that his target, the bizarrely named Mary Ann (Gene Hackman), is running criminal operations from his farm that include murder, narcotics and even human cattle trading (he's selling young girls as sex slaves). Already three Chicago hit-men have fallen foul of Mary Ann in their quest to bring him to heel - the last being turned into sausages, literally, and mailed back to Chicago. Now Devlin must take up the unenviable task of stopping Mary Ann in his tracks. Devlin enrages Mary Ann by freeing one of his human "slaves", the young Poppy (Sissy Spacek). In retribution, Mary Ann pulls out all the stops to have Devlin and his back-up crew killed. Both sides suffer losses before Devlin and Mary Ann finally come face-to-face at the latter's isolated farm. Prime Cut is definitely a unique film, though that doesn't particularly mean it's good. The characters are intentionally presented as oddballs which makes them initially interesting, though the effect starts to wear thin as the film progresses. The Kansas countryside provides a colourful backdrop and creates a strong contrast with the dark characters and plot. The film really comes undone when one tries to follow its narrative, for it is so fast-paced and scattershot that it barely makes a shred of sense. Also, the characters are frustratingly under-developed (this is a rare example of a film that isn't overlong but, if anything, UNDERlong!!) I wanted to know more about Marvin's past; I wanted more scenes featuring Hackman's depraved villain; I wanted more to be made of Angel Tompkins' gangster's moll character; and I definitely wanted the climactic shootout to have a more satisfying pay-off. Prime Cut has cult potential, but it's more of a curious misfire than anything else.

The best thing about Prime Cut is the chance to see both Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman. Marvin is the understated bad-ass we've seen before and Gene Hackman is the greasy bad guy we've seen before. If you like these two in familiar roles that don't require them to stretch their acting abilities, Prime Cut is for you. There are some good action sequences (especially the scene in the wheat field), but it's the two stars that make this one worthwhile. The plot certainly isn't the attraction. In fact, the plot is the weakest part of the movie. Why? Because there is no plot. Instead, Prime Cut is a series of action sequences strung together with a bare minimum of story. When the movie ended, I had more questions than when it began. What's the history between Marvin and Hackman? What is the relationship between Marvin and Hackman's wife? Does anyone in the movie have a backstory? Are the Kansas City area police completely oblivious to everything going on around them? Was that just some random fat guy on the combine trying to kill Marvin? Do people in Kansas City really wear overalls with no shirt or shoes? It's these burning questions that I wanted answers to.

Trailer—Prime Cut

Prime Cut

So what if 'Dog Day', made a decade later, repeats the threshing machine chase. It only underscores the success of the original, in which the 'teeth' of the threshing machine seem almost human. Watching them grind up the limo makes you feel almost sorry for the car. There are other scenes and themes I doubt that you will ever see in another movie: the packing house expose of what that meat you eat really goes through as it goes from the moo-cow to the sausage, for one. At least we don't see the guy actually made into the sausage the brother keeps eating!! Hackman plays his evil best as an all-American who 'gives the public what they want' from meat to dope to virgins raised in an orphanage quite unlike the one in 'Cider House Rules'. Sissy Spacek does a good job in her first onscreen role, but come on!!! No one could be so stupid as to be unaware that they are wearing a completely transparent gown!! A few other holes in the film exist, but it is certainly a unique experience.

What a bonkers movie this is: gangsters turned into sausages, naked teenage virgins sold at cattle markets, a hard man called Mary Ann, car-eating combine harvesters, sausage-wielding hit-men - this one's got them all. It's also got Lee Marvin acting very cool as a dapper fixer for the Irish mob in Chicago who's dispatched to the mid-west to secure payment from a defaulting Gene Hackman who literally turned their last enforcer into sausage-meat. This one has a real 70s feel to it even though it's not generally recognised as a classic - which, of course, it isn't: character development is zero and the bad guys are like something out of a 1940's comic strip. Despite that, it's great fun - and Sissy Spacek, who isn't generally regarded as a classic beauty, looks gorgeous.