Cutter’s Way

Alternate title: Hamlet Goes to Santa Barbara. Jeff Bridges is Richard Bone (the source novel was called Cutter and Bone), friends with Alex Cutter (John Heard, in a very loud performance), a bitter alcoholic missing an arm and a leg. Cutter is the kind of guy who just grates on my nerves, all the time. My advice to bitter alcoholic cripples is to do one of two things: GET OVER IT, or off yourself and spare the rest of us your loud, obnoxious angst. Bone witnesses, sort of, the dumping of a prostitute’s body by, maybe, a local very rich man. Cutter, in a quixotic moment, decides to go after him. And Bone hews and haws literally right up to the last frame of the film. None of it is pleasant to watch, or enlightening, or even very interesting. I agree with Lee, who says she just isn’t all that interested in stories about alcoholics