[.ca] Prime Cut

From Amazon.com:
Prime Cut is a strangely likeable if decidedly oddball thriller from 1972. A happy collision of gangster genre grit (validated by Lee Marvin's granite-faced lead performance) with a strain of shameless (though shrewd) exploitation not unfamiliar to screenwriter Robert Dillon (X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes), plus the kinetic, semi-documentary wit of director Michael Ritchie (The Candidate) makes Prime Cut both a straightforward noir and a satire of itself. Marvin plays Nick, an aging enforcer for the Chicago mob, sent to Kansas City to deal with a ruthless cattle baron (Gene Hackman) who owes a half-million to Windy City racketeers. Hackman's character (inexplicably named Mary Ann), dismissive of old-guard crime chieftains, has set up his own heartland empire guarded by a weird contingent of blond, lookalike young men with rifles. Not only does he render the bodies of his enemies into sausage meat, Mary Ann is making a fortune trafficking in naked, enslaved young women. One of the latter, played by Sissy Spacek (in her film debut), falls under the protection of Nick, who sets about taking Mary Ann down. Ritchie's highly energized, absurdist scenes (e.g., a gunfight in an endless field of sunflowers) are nicely counterpointed by Marvin's smooth anti-heroics and the self-conscious cheesiness of the sex slave angle. --Tom Keogh

Prime Cut!:
Here we have Gene Hackman as the head of the Kansas City mafia. Leaving the city behind, Hackman makes his money on pork and prostitution. We quickly find out that Hackman is indebted to the Chicago mob for 500 large. They send one of their hoods down there to collect, but Hackman literally turns him into hotdog meat and mails the "franks" back to Chicago. Ready to play hardball, the Chicago mob retort by sending Lee Marvin down there to take out the trash, saving a young Sissy Spacek along the way. The ruckus that ensues is worth the price of the DVD alone, or at least a rental.

Strange, subversive 70s action thriller:
Weird doesn't even begin to describe this movie. I saw it on late night TV when I was a teenager and I've been waiting for it to appear on DVD for a the last few years. Now that I've finally had a chance to see it again I realize that my younger self didn't pick up on just how weird of a film this was all along. Michael Richie's 70's films, before his mainstream hit 'Bad News Bears,' are all underrated, quirky and distinctly different. 'Prime Cut' is a deadpan parody of gangster movies and American rural sentimentality. Here the city is the land of principles and the rural US is insanely, cartoonishly corrupt and evil. Hackman and Marvin are great together of course. The only real problem is the feeling that parts of the film are rushed; I suspect Richie was forced to cut several scenes to keep the film to a short 87 minutes. At the same time this keeps the film sleek and slightly chilly in that classic 70's thriller style which I miss so much. BTW keep your eye out for a simply stunning sequence involving a man and a hot dog. I also recommend Richie's films 'Smile' and 'Downhill Racer' (the latter is not out on DVD yet unfortunately).