Anyone who thinks it’s going to take the lumbering “Clear Cut” is a sap–it’s a plot so incompetent that it can’t even be said to see the trees for the wood. Wooden barely begins to describe it and its ensemble of moronic characters whose only intention is to kill each other and leave the last man standing with the title.
Directed by Brian Skiba with the delicacy of a 2×4 to the head, the tale of an ex-DEA officer who embarks on a mission against a group of meth-makers in the forests of Oregon is all bark and no bite. It’s simply an endless flow of unintentional comedy thanks to an ensemble of actors so thick that they can hardly be laughed at.
Clive Standen tells Jack the lumberjack and–in contradiction to the traditional Monty Python song–he is most definitely not ok. He’s actually a very angry man as he actively seeks employment with Alec Baldwin’s logging company to track down the meth heads who appear to have been taking lessons from “Breaking Bad” reruns. They even run a mobile lab that has a striking resemblance to the one Walt and Jesse used to live in in the early seasons.
As if for one second Joe Perruccio, the first time screenwriter, thought that just because he moved the ‘Winnebago’ from a desert in New Mexico to the greenery of Pacific Northwest, we will not see through his copycat act. And in contrast to Walt and Jesse, these idiots are so lame that they had to leave a corpse and a cash-stuffed duffel bag unsecured in the back of a truck. Logic dictates such actions are appropriate on this team of imbeciles fronted by Jesse Metcalfe, disgraced ‘Desperate Housewives’ actor turned even worse enactor 20 years on, met his old deranged self once again.
Everyone knows Baldwin and see him even on the movie poster with his name written above the title, but will be unhappy to discover he doesn’t reappear after the opening 10 minute sequence. Unfortunately for us almost for entire 90 minutes we watch prosthetic effects with gunfire, stabbing and arrow shooting which seem to be our favorite necks, hearts and minds being shot through.
Violence is the name of the game for Skiba, as here he makes a blatant attempt to enthrall with blood and gore rather than actual storytelling and building his characters up, “Deliverance” meets “Walking Tall”. Oddly, that becomes a blessing for us as the film’s painfully slow moments involving Jack, his loving spouse (Lucy Martin) and their annoying 5-year-old child referred to as “Captain Pancakes” are so saccharine in nature that you gag automatically at the slightest hint of their presence on screen.
These quaint depictions of married life are interspersed via flash backs to before jack turned into the vengeful lunatic with a badge, and the aforementioned tenacity for blood. A lot of blood in fact. It’s almost as though he is a reincarnated Rasputin, because he survives numerous life-ending injuries while exploring the rough edges of the Portland wilderness (actually, British Columbia) to give a mercy killing to at least a dozen unworthy culprits.
In his quite unique sense, Standen does not disappoint and he tries his best to portray his limited on-screen presence through more grunting, and screaming, dramatic and intense huffing. But as I already mentioned, it’s better than watching jack inside the domestic space- which is somehow as irritating as the film itself. So, watch out because I am practically screaming “Timber.”!
For more movies visit like Clear Cut on 123Movies.