Cut And Run (1985)

At the moment I seem to be going down nostalgia alley by watching films that I first saw in the 70s and 80s. I first saw Cut And Run in (roughly) 1986 and me and my friends were mainly attracted to it by the front cover of a vicious looking Michael Berryman. Unfortunately I can't remember a whole heap from that first viewing which surprised me after re-watching it as it has a lot in it for a teenage kid to remember.

Directed by Ruggero Deodato, it is another of his films to be set in a jungle. In fact Deodato is on record saying that it was as close to a sequel to his infamous Cannibal Holocaust as he was ever going to get - although don't be expecting much cannibal behaviour; the link is more the barbarity of the civilised world.

After a pre-credits sequence of a tribal attack on a jungle drug factory, we cut to Fran and Mark, a reporter and her cameraman, who are staking out a house in the city where they are sure drugs are being sold. After entering the house they find the occupants butchered, tribal fashion. Fran steals a photo and recgnises one of the people in the photo as being the son of her boss, who quickly sends her and Mark into the jungle to cover the story (it's all linked with Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre) and track down his son, who, it turns out, is being held captive in the jungle to help the drug runners.

Though there are some half-baked ideas in the film, what really sets it apart from some of the Euro Action movies is the tight direction by Deodato. He has a firm hand on the proceedings and keeps the pacing at a perfect level. And if this isn't enough, there's enough gore and action to keep all genre fans happy, including an especially gory, if ridiculous, ripping apart of a man from a jungle booby trap. Although the version I saw suffered from being dubbed back into it's original English, apart from a few Italian segments, the acting generally above acceptable, with the odd notable exception. And it's still a pleasure to see Berryman in anything. His first appearance here, as he leaps out of the water and grabs one of the workers and disappears with him underwater unnoticed by the others is a highly memorable moment - the first of many in the film.