Intelligence chopped to ground in violent ‘Clear Cut’
You’d have to be a sap to fall for the lumbering “Clear Cut,” a would-be thriller so inept it can’t see the forest for the trees. Wooden doesn’t begin to describe it and its collection of idiotic characters intent on annihilating each other until no one is left standing, thus the title.
Directed by Brian Skiba with all the subtlety of a 2×4 upside the head, his story of a former DEA officer waging a personal vendetta against a band of meth cookers deep in the Oregon woods is all bark and no bite. It’s merely a steady stream of unintentional laughs courtesy of a stand of actors so dense it’s impossible to take them seriously.
They are led by Clive Standen as Jack the lumberjack, and – contrary to the classic Monty Python ditty – he’s most certainly not OK. In fact, he’s consumed with vengeance, expressly hiring on with Alec Baldwin’s tree-cutting enterprise as a means to gain access to the meth heads who seem to have taken their cues off reruns of “Breaking Bad.” They even operate out of a rolling lab remarkably similar to the RV Walt and Jesse occupied in their early days.
Apparently, first-time screenwriter Joe Perruccio thought we might overlook his rip-off simply because he’s transported the Winnebago from the barren landscapes of New Mexico to the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest. And unlike Walt and Jesse, these clowns are amateurish enough to leave a dead body and a gym bag bulging with cash lying unprotected in the back of a pickup. But then, doing the dumbest thing possible is standard operating procedure for this crew of morons led by “Desperate Housewives” emigre Jesse Metcalfe, all grown up and somehow an even worse actor now than he was 20 years ago.
Oh, buyer beware, even though Baldwin is featured prominently in the film poster and billed above the title, he’s pretty much absent after the first 10 minutes. No such luck for us, as we’re left to endure almost 90 minutes of cheesy special effects accompanied by shootings, impalings and, my favorite, whizzing crossbow arrows piercing necks, hearts and minds.
It’s like “Deliverance” meets “Walking Tall” as Skiba accentuates graphic violence over character development. Ironically, that proves an unlikely boon to us, as the film’s quieter moments centering on Jack, his adoring wife (Lucy Martin) and their cutesy 5-year-old, aka “Captain Pancakes,” are so syrupy you reflexively gag every time they appear.
These Rockwellian images of domestic bliss are presented via flashbacks to Jack’s life before he became your worst nightmare, a vindictive psycho with a badge. An indestructible one at that. He’s Rasputin reincarnated as he sustains a multitude of near-fatal wounds inflicted while trekking the untamed expanses outside Portland (actually British Columbia) looking to deliver the coup de grȃce to a dozen or so men he deems unworthy of a trial by jury.
Through it all, Standen seems to relish the opportunity to exhibit his less-than-stellar acting skills, which include lots of huffing, growling and wailing. But like I said, it’s preferable to observing Jack in his household habitat, where he’s almost as intolerable as the movie. So, heed my warning as I loudly yell, “Timber”!
Movie review
Clear Cut
Rated: R for some sexual content, drug content, nudity, language, violence
Cast: Clive Standen, Stephen Dorff, Jesse Metcalfe and Alec Baldwin
Director: Brian Skiba
Writer: Joe Perruccio
Runtime: 89 minutes
Where: In theaters and on demand starting July 19
Grade: D
