6 | / 10 |
Users | 2.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Dwayne McLaren has been looking for a way out of his small town upbringing in Cut Bank, MT, since he graduated high school several years earlier. When he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time, he jumps at a chance to pursue a better life in a bigger city with his girlfriend, Cassandra. But luck doesn't exist in Cut Bank, and this perceived good fortune is quickly followed by a flood of bad karma.
Starring: Liam Hemsworth, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce DernThriller | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
If the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino agreed to collaborate on a picture, but then perhaps came to creative blows sometime during the shoot, the result might be something very like Cut Bank, an intermittently engaging thriller mixing the isolated location and accruing body count of Fargo with the florid, almost twee, verbal perspicacity of a film like Pulp Fiction. The Fargo reference is perhaps particularly apt, not just due to some plot similarities and an overall likeness in tone, but also because director Matt Shakman has worked on the Fargo television series and has engaged the show’s co-stars Billy Bob Thornton and Oliver Platt to appear here. The main thrust of the plot concerns strapping young Dwayne McLaren (Liam Hemsworth, looking like he’s passing a whole slew of kidney stones throughout the film), a kid who is sick of living in the stultifying confines of Cut Bank, Montana, the supposed “coldest place in the nation.” Out in an impossibly scenic field one day with his pretty girlfriend Cassandra (Teresa Palmer), Dwayne pulls out a home video camera to capture Cassandra rehearsing for an upcoming beauty pageant which may provide the pair with a little nest egg to aid in their attempts to get the heck out of Dodge (and/or Cut Bank). In a perhaps winking reference to outings like Blow-Up, Dwayne instead manages to catch a horrifying murder that takes place in the background. That in turn sets a whole cartwheeling series of events into motion which, in true Fargo style, results in a rather gruesome body count and a number of once hidden intrigues which slowly but surely burst into the cold (coldest?) light of day.
Cut Bank is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Shot on film with the Arricam LT, Cut Bank, though not very long and not in competition for disc real estate with an unwieldy amount of supplements, may have done better with a bit more breathing room, for there are some minor but nagging issues with compression in some of the film's many dark sequences. Out in the bright sunlight, and especially in some of the nice scenes in the huge, yellow flower filled, meadow, colors pop agreeably well and detail is excellent. Depth of field is also commendable in many of these scenes. Even some dimly lit sequences can provide good to very good fine detail (see screenshot 8). A couple of scenes have been moderately color graded (see screenshot 2), but detail and fine detail are generally pleasing.
Cut Bank features a nicely spacious DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which provides good support for the film's oudoor locales, neatly establishing aural depth with well placed ambient environmental sounds, while also prioritizing dialogue. All spoken elements are clearly and cleanly presented, and the film's score, which utilizes some source cues like Hank Williams, Jr.'s ode to the titular Montana town, sounds fine on this problem free track.
Cut Bank is obviously derivative, and it never quite recovers from spilling its veritable beans too early in the overall arc of the story, but there are several quite compelling elements here, not the least of which is Bruce Dern's completely gonzo take on Georgie Wits, a guy who has most definitely "gone postal," though perhaps not in the way typically assumed. Occasionally fun and more than occasionally a bit gruesome, Cut Bank is certainly no Fargo, but it does go a bit, anyway. Technical merits are very good to excellent, and with caveats noted, Cut Bank comes Recommended.
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