The film has about three openings: one opens on an attack on what appears to be drug runners (although I should note that I only caught it on the second viewing, the first time, I just thought it was people working). The attack is led by Michael Berryman (the original The Hills Have Eyes, Weird Science), who seems to the primary hitman in native garb. At his call, local tribesmen and one more white dude in a short sarong follow his lead and kill all the men. Two women are pinned down with stakes through their shins and raped, and then beheaded. This happens about four and a half minutes in. You stay classy Deodato, considering these women were probably just there cos their boyfriends were. Keep calling it all a parallel to the Vietnam War all you want. It doesn’t change the fact that this movie takes place in the Amazon, not
Anyway, in
Fran takes a picture from the dead woman’s purse. She first takes it to her informant, a strip club owner and pimp played by Eriq LaSalle (of TV’s ER). After some research she finds that not only is their boss’ missing son is in the picture, there is also a man who was a Vietnam War veteran, and was believed to have died in the Jonestown Massacre and was a right-hand man to Jim Jones. Her bosses, one of whom is played by Karen Black, approve her idea that she and Mark fly down to the Amazon to find the son and interview Horne, the presumed dead fellow.
Back to the Amazon, where we find the son, whose name is Tommy, and another man being chased through the woods. The son is played by none other than Willie Aames. Formerly of Charles in Charge, Zapped!, and currently of the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Bible Man, a children’s show about…well, I’ve never quite figured it out. He fights demons and quotes the Bible a lot, all on an extremely low budget. I inexplicably get this channel for no reason. As punishment for not being able to afford cable I guess. Another 1980s teen heartthrob, Kirk Cameron also has a show on TBN, and along with his Australian, Sonny Bono-lookin’ co-host, is constantly telling people that they’re going to hell. But I digress. The Latino man is shot and killed, and Tommy is told to “Thank God you’re white” and is dragged back to camp, where he gets kicked a lot. He cries to his only friend Ana and says he will never stop trying to escape, and he’d rather be dead than work for this other drug runner (again, I didn’t pick up on this until the second viewing). Ana figures out a way that they can possibly escape, with the arrival of the plane that is coming that night. Guess who. A delivery comes in via plane a few moments later. Manuel, the man who brought the delivery, is allowed to rape Ana as partial payment. Ana, who has given up hope of ever getting away and was a woman who got dragged into this by her now-dead boyfriend, just looks hopeless and bored, and Tommy peeks in at one point and looks defenseless, cos he kind of sucks. After it’s over, Ana takes a shower and ol’ Tommy comes in looking apologetic. He somewhat convinces her to escape with him. While I’ll admit he’s pretty good at expressing anguish on his face, Aames’ overly earnest line delivery makes Luke Skywalker seem edgy. He is by far the worst actor in this movie.
But alas, before the plane with Fran and Mark lands that night, whilst Ana and Tommy are lighting the runway with barrel torches, the camp is attacked by Michael Berryman and the gang again. Ana and Tommy are separated in the attack, and the pilot of Fran and Mark’s plane is killed upon their landing. Of course, the crazy troopers that they are, Fran and Mark report on the aftermath and carnage the next morning, after spending the night in the woods not sleeping. They soon come across Ana. Tommy, wandering through the woods comes across his boss, tied from all limbs, and he is begging to be shot. Instead of granting his wish immediately, he waits until the boss is torn in half and is probably already dead to shoot him. Yes, this is the really gory part that got cut out and is the only piece that couldn’t be remastered. Most of the gore in this movie comes from the at least four or five beheadings I counted. And they came out looking pretty cheesy.
Fran, Mark, and Ana make their way downriver. They make another report. One of them is killed. They find Tommy, and make an attempt to rowboat to the next safe village, and are caught by the Berryman troops, who are being led by Horne. They do not know that Tommy’s dad has met up with Eriq LaSalle’s character to figure out what village they are at. His dad calls in some brigade that he meets up with once he gets to the Amazon. They soon find where his son and everyone else are being held. Horne reluctantly and bizarrely agrees to give an interview, after berating Fran for bringing the modern world and all this chaos to him and his people, which is what they were trying to escape. He agrees to the interview, but tells his right-hand man that they will be burning down the village and leaving it in the morning after killing the trio of survivors. For some odd reason, he does something totally different, and it all goes downhill from there for the cult leader and his group.
Yes, cult leader. This was something else that I didn’t catch until the second viewing. There wasn’t really any great sign of it until Horne makes his great speech, which is maybe a third of the length of any given speech that Colonel Kurtz gives in Apocalypse Now. Horne is barely seen for much of the movie. The first time I sort-of watched this, after Deodato’s intro that implied that maybe this was like Cannibal Holocaust, I questioned why all these native people were following these white men around. It’s not until our trio of final protagonists arrives to the island that it is shown that not only does he have Amazon natives as followers, but regular Latinos, and a few white people as well. They’re a purity cult of some sort. I’m not sure if I would’ve caught all this and the fact that the two groups in the beginning were drug dealers even if I watched it seriously the first time. I could blame it on holiday stress, but the fact of the matter is that this movie was completely unclear in its story and motives most of the time. Interviews in the extras reveal that the film had three competing visions – Deodato’s, the writers, and the producers. There is no clear indication that Horne was extremely charismatic or convincing, and his character is given very little screen time to convince me otherwise. The reason why I don’t know anymore than four or five characters names is that it seemed like the other characters didn’t have one. Most of the performances in this movie were uniformly dull and lacked any personality, save for Karen Black in her minor role, and Eriq LaSalle, although I couldn’t help but think of various scenes from Hollywood Shuffle whenever he was on screen. Yeah, I think this movie is kind of racist and sexist.
And I don’t understand the casting of Willie Aames at all really. There had to have been some better young male actor from minor films or TV for this role, someone with more talent, and better looking. I’ve been racking my brain, but I can’t think of anyone. Granted, this movie originally came out when I was 4 years old, so my memory of popular young TV actors from the early 1980s is limited at best.
Cut and Run isn’t a completely bad way to spend 90 minutes, but I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this movie. Anchor Bay did a bang-up job with remastering the film and it does have a catchy score by Claudio Simonetti and some beautiful shots of scenery to add to the plus column. But the rape scenes are just gratuitous and pointless, there’s kind of a ridiculous amount of racism even if one goes past LaSalle’s character, and I just can’t fully recommend it in good conscience. This type of movie is probably a breeze for your average Italian exploitation movie fan, especially if you turn your brain off, and while I’m kind of used to it myself, there are various European or Italian horror or exploitation films I can’t totally support without calling bullshit on some of the typical things they portray.
DVD:
Running Time: 90 minutes
Extras: Trailer, Ruggero Deodato bio, Uncut and Run (16 min.)
