Review of In the Cut (2003) by Nilufer R — 01 Feb 2010

A little bit of my soul died today. "In the Cut" is a film with a very sloppy style and overly left wing in your face kind of film that feels like the cameraman was drunk when shooting it. The film attempts to be a romance mystery thriller sort of film but comes out as a high school production. The only thing memorable was the Jamaican drag queen who added humor for about twenty seconds. The rest of the film is a bunch of poorly dark shots without much going on. It seems most of the budget went to booze for the production. I honestly don't remember the director's name but it wouldn't surprise me if they were related to Ed Wood.

The film revolves around an overly paranoid writing teacher who gets involved with a cop sexually. All the males are portrayed as a bunch of sex hungry homophobes who fetishize females while females are innocent and have depth to them. There's a bunch of random obscure sex scenes that portray men as boy toys adding no value to the story. The cop is in search of a murder and with each new victim makes the teacher more paranoid thinking he's the killer when it ends up to be his buddy (What a twist!). Eventually his buddy is shot by her and she comes back to his arms covered in blood after locking him to a pole for the night.

The characters aren't that memorable along with the story itself. It attempts to do a twist at the end which isn't that great since the character who they were twisting could have been easily anyone else. The cameraman had too much to drink since things are often out of focus for no apparent reason other than "style" bouncing all over like it was being filmed from a trampoline. The lighting was enjoyable with a golden look to the film while editing was just a generic slap together of the wasted film the cameraman shot.

If you enjoy films that go against the Hollywood styled films with lots of sex that's dark then this is the film for you! Anyone else expecting something awesome will probably have trouble staying awake or get nauseous from all the handheld shots. The ending isn't satisfying after sitting for two hours hoping something will make up for it making you realize a little bit of your soul just died from it. It plays just as a horrible high school film production with a generic plot having a very dark and overly left wing view of life that makes you want to shoot yourself.