Clear Cut Review – Drug Syndicate Drama Delivers Heightened Suspense

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Category: Indies, Docs, Foreign Film

Published on Tuesday, 23 July 2024 14:39

Written by Janet Walker

Clear Cut, from Lionsgate Films, presents a fast-action revenge thriller, as a mountain man drug syndicate becomes the target of one man's vengeance after a deal gone bad results in the death of his daughter.

The film opens with an unknown woman running frantically through the forest. She is panicked, trips, falls and crouches behind a log. Suddenly, behind her, a man carrying a crossbow finds her, she begs for her life, but he shows her no mercy, aims, and releases the bow. The arrow penetrates her neck.

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The next scene begins with Sam, played by Alec Baldwin, a seasoned logger somewhere deep in the Oregon forest, explaining to his partner, Jack, played by Clive Standen, the rules that have kept men alive, and what can happen, especially to first-time loggers when they wander off or don't pay attention.

Halfway to the start point, they meet up with the local forest ranger, played by Stephen Dorff, a seasoned ranger, who respects the forest, understands one step off the trail can become life and death, and one small ember in a high wind can start raging, uncontrollable, deadly fires. This is his home turf. We also see that Jack is hiding his face from the ranger, and while we don't know what is behind his action, we understand there is a reason.

Sam and Jack continue the cut throughout the morning. By lunch, Jack has walked away. He stumbles onto what looks like the homestead of someone who has dropped off the grid and set up a site in the middle of the forest. He lifts the tarp covering the bed of the truck and sees the murdered woman.

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Just then a truck pulls up, and Jack hides, as two men, and a woman, walk inside the trailer. They begin loading meth onto the truck. He reaches for the money bag and realizes it has been stolen.

Suddenly Jack runs back to the job site and shows Sam the money. Both men are marveling at the amount when an arrow flies by out of nowhere and we see Sam is hit. Jack begins to run. The meth dealers load Sam into the bed of the truck and decide they are going to burn the bodies. They douse both bodies and suddenly Sam sits up and screams. It is a shocking scene.

What follows is the hunt, as Jack continues to run for his life, as the cartel tracks him. One by one he evens the odds, and throughout we meet his family and daughter, and understand the motivation for his fight to the death determination.

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A fast-action cartel drama, Clear Cut delivers heightened suspense as it unpacks the backstory of this attention-grabbing revenge thriller.

As most audiences understand the essentials of the genre, Clear Cut is what it is, our hero is bent on exacting revenge, and the location, high in the Pacific Northwest, in the middle of nowhere without the possibility of help, adds the element of surprise and hooks viewers to the end. It is electrifying.

With a different take on the traditional meth syndicate drama, Clear Cut delivers a race-against-time thriller. It is streaming and on VOD. See it.

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Country: U.S.

Language: English.

Running Time: 88 mins.

Director: Brian Skiba.

Producers: Eric Bromberg, Ram Getz, Greg Meyer, Nick Mao, Michael Mortensen, Jordan Wayne Nott, Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor, Tyler Gould, Kirk Shaw, Stephanie Rennie.

Executive Producer: Corey Large.

Writer: Joe Perruccio.

Cast: Clive Standen, Lucy Martin, Jesse Metcalfe, Tom Welling, Lochlyn Munro, Chelsey Reist, Tom Stevens, Mike Dopud, Stephen Dorff, Alec Baldwin.