- Actors: Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Sissy Spacek, Angel Tompkins, Gregory Walcott
- Directors: Michael Ritchie
- Writers: Robert Dillon
- Producers: Joe Wizan, Kenneth L. Evans, Mickey Borofsky
- Format: Colour, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
- Language English
- Subtitles: English
- Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.66:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: R (Restricted) (US MPAA rating. See details.)
- Studio: Paramount
- DVD Release Date: 14 Jun 2005
- Run Time: 88 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B0008KLVA0
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 33,669 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
PRIME CUT is, in my opinion, a highly under-rated film with an impressive cast. One of Lee Marvin's best performances with Gene Hackman putting in his patented, slimy villain performance (you know, where one wants to see Hackman die!). Top notch action which gets more tense as the story unfolds. A highly unusual film where one is rooting for a mob hitman over another criminal!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Finally released on region 2 DVD, "Prime Cut" is an unusual, darkly humorous, early 70's mob thriller. It is intelligently and wittily scripted, well directed (by Michael Ritchie) and very well acted by Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman. What sets it apart is that it is quirky without trying too hard i.e. it's not self-consciously trying to be clever, it's just effortlessly self-assured and entertaining. It has a maturity and laconic humour which most films these days can't hope to achieve. The Kansas settings are not the usual run-of-the mill locations of typical mob thrillers. The action is tough and uncompromising, but it's the dialogue and unusual character development which set it apart. The film takes time to show scenes which don't really advance the plot but show us more about characters e.g. Gene Hackman's character wrestling with his dim-witted brother; a milk-tasting competition in a country fair. Another bonus is the great music score by Lalo Schifrin and beautiful cinematography (by Gene Polito) of the landscape and cityscape. There's a particularly memorable scene where Marvin's character is in a car, racing purposefully along a dusty road through a farming landscape with threatening, grey rain clouds and lightning. The music and cinematography complement each other perfectly to give a sense of relentless purpose, menace and eerie beauty.
The sound and picture quality on this DVD release is excellent. A highly entertaining, tough, intelligent thriller with a sense of humour. It sits well with "Charley Varrick" and "The Outfit".
The sound and picture quality on this DVD release is excellent. A highly entertaining, tough, intelligent thriller with a sense of humour. It sits well with "Charley Varrick" and "The Outfit".
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
'70's tough guy films were just that. Tough guys in tough neighbourhoods shooting the wrong guys. Lee Marvin is one of those charismatically understated cool guys who you just have to watch.
Prime Cut is one of my all-time guilty pleasures. Compact in length, full of invention and visual quirkiness. But, largely, set on a farm, with an agricultural show going on?
Very loosely, it follows many drug/crime/revenge thrillers but behind the greenhouses of that almost other side of US life; agriculture. That staple of American institutions - food! Honest, wholesome, natural. We're not talking about hill-billies eating their own young and such stuff, but an almost believable organised vice crime behind an unlikely front.
OK, I'm biased, having being brought up on a farm, where the sort of death by invention that transferred so well in Terminator etc goes beyond even my imagination. And, I've never seen a combine harvester do what it does here (enough said).
What makes it far more than a near horror flick is the human story, turning the action into a far deeper experience. I couldn't help falling for Sissy Spacek whose dreamy narcosis harks back to 1960's Peace & Love but the seedy intonations are far more creepy. As rich men looking for sex have always done, morals fly out of the window. To me, also, Marvin mirrors Michael Caine in another favourite of mine, "Get Carter", which turns from a routine revenge-for-killing into something far more personable and, almost, touching. Then, full scale, cat and mouse revenge!
At times, it does seem a bit chauvinistic but that "was" US crime thrillers of the '70s. The multicoloured suits, hairstyles and gas guzzlers all luridly illuminated by an offbeat directing talent with a refreshingly different backdrop will, as it did me for many years, remain in the memory long after the forgettable title did.
Prime Cut is one of my all-time guilty pleasures. Compact in length, full of invention and visual quirkiness. But, largely, set on a farm, with an agricultural show going on?
Very loosely, it follows many drug/crime/revenge thrillers but behind the greenhouses of that almost other side of US life; agriculture. That staple of American institutions - food! Honest, wholesome, natural. We're not talking about hill-billies eating their own young and such stuff, but an almost believable organised vice crime behind an unlikely front.
OK, I'm biased, having being brought up on a farm, where the sort of death by invention that transferred so well in Terminator etc goes beyond even my imagination. And, I've never seen a combine harvester do what it does here (enough said).
What makes it far more than a near horror flick is the human story, turning the action into a far deeper experience. I couldn't help falling for Sissy Spacek whose dreamy narcosis harks back to 1960's Peace & Love but the seedy intonations are far more creepy. As rich men looking for sex have always done, morals fly out of the window. To me, also, Marvin mirrors Michael Caine in another favourite of mine, "Get Carter", which turns from a routine revenge-for-killing into something far more personable and, almost, touching. Then, full scale, cat and mouse revenge!
At times, it does seem a bit chauvinistic but that "was" US crime thrillers of the '70s. The multicoloured suits, hairstyles and gas guzzlers all luridly illuminated by an offbeat directing talent with a refreshingly different backdrop will, as it did me for many years, remain in the memory long after the forgettable title did.
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