The Cutter (2006)

It is a performances centric movie

Admirable film.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Chuck Norris and Daniel Bernhardt star in this rather entertaining low budget action film. The story is interesting enough with a plot centered around diamond cutting and former Nazis tracking down an old Jewish cutter from death camps. But this is all about Norris, and he's still kicking ass and throwing people out of windows while being kind to pretty women in trouble. Unlike Steven Seagal, whose fights seem to be just a bag of editing tricks, here you see that Norris is still doing most of the stuff himself. It has a pretty unpredictable story and I found myself enjoying it probably more than I should have.I'm a fan of Chuck and Daniel Bernhardt so I had a good time with The Cutter.For Norris fans, this movie is surely worth a watch and the story is intriguing also. So If you like Norris like i do then you'll like this movie. If you don't, go somewhere else.

John Shepherd (Chuck Norris) is a private investigator with a heart of gold. One day, he runs across attempted kidnap victim Elizabeth Teller (Joanna Pacula). She and her uncle Issac (Bernie Kopell) are expert gem cutters. Dirk (Daniel Bernhardt) is a murderer and raided an archaeological dig in the Sinai desert. He stole the Breastplate of Aaron from the dig, and kidnaps Issac to do a specific cut on the gems in the breastplate.This is a pretty good movie if it was made in the late 80s. Chuck Norris, Joanna Pacula, Bernie Kopell, and Tracy Scoggins are great blast from the past. The action is explosive enough ... for the 80s. The fact is movie making has moved on. It's not like Chuck has gotten any better as an actor. He doesn't have the same moves as his younger self. This is no more than a relatively good B-movie.

Chuck Norris plays a private investigator named "John Shepherd" who is investigating the disappearance of an elderly Jewish diamond cutter named "Issac Teller" (Bernie Kopell) who has been kidnapped from his home. What makes this odd to John Shepherd is that no ransom has been demanded and the kidnappers also try to abduct Issac's niece, "Elizabeth Teller" (Joanna Pacula) as well. Now, even though this isn't a bad film and it certainly has some suspense and action, there really isn't anything here to differentiate it from a host of other films in this genre. Chuck Norris is his usual bland self who gives his standard vanilla performance. Likewise, both Joanna Pacula and Daniel Bernhardt (as the the bad guy"Dirk") perform adequately as well. And while Tracy Scoggins ("Alena") is also in this film, her part was limited and this fact adds another reason for the lackluster final product. That said, if a person is looking for an average action film then this is certainly something they should consider.

Chuck Norris makes somewhat of a comeback after a few years of TV movies. Cleary his sporadic output in the last ten years is Chuck attempting to slowly bow out of the movie business, or at least the ass kicking movie business. Now Chuck is of course a pensioner now and although he's in excellent shape he is, how Gibson and Glover might say "too old for this s**t!" It's true, Chuck has made a living some 30 plus years, kicking people in the head, he is much loved for doing so. Now as far as action stars go, Chuck is one who is a bit of a personality void. He doesn't really have the charisma of an Arnold, and somehow doesn't have star power, he seems to much of a nice guy, everyman, while similarly he didn't get by on his looks either. Sure Chuck Norris was a great ass-kicker, but wooden he most certainly is. Chuck never really had much personality on screen, even wooden stars like Seagal and Van Damme did. Chuck had some roles where he was okay and he plays the quiet, calm hero well.Anyway what all my anti Chuck relates to is the Cutter. At 65 he now is heavily doubled. The fights are also poorly thought out and filmed in order to make life easier to include Chuck in his master shots etc. There are several fights in this film, all of which are markedly similar. Chuck swings punches like John Wayne cowboy fighting, on his master shot, while the coverage shots are filming his double from behind doing the same dull punching slightly faster, and throwing in the odd kick. In his fights Chuck is generally filmed waste up, swinging lefts and rights and that's it. The thing is he is participating in a good length of these reasonably long fights, especially when you compare that Seagal regularly gets doubled and sometimes isn't even there for his master shots. So the fights in Cutter are incredibly, that's the truth. The rest of the action too is dull, from poorly conceived shootouts, to lame car chases. Daniel Bernhardt, still in his action man prime, is also wasted and of course when he fights Chuck, the simple fact that they are filmed to hide Chucks double and Chucks lack of speed, Bernhardt can't do much.The Cutter is best described as boring. If compared to Seagal's recent films, it's at least competently made but the plot holds no interest, Norris seems bored, and only Bernhardt, not known for his acting ability, seems remotely interesting as a character and performer. it's really just a dinosaur of a film that is kind of bottom shelf from the 80's and has made it's way to the present day. Only the score from Elia Cmiral goes beyond the mundane in this, and he proves reliable for these sorts of films, however his work here is a long way from his excellent work in The Mechanik and a country mile behind his apex in Ronin. This is I'm afraid perhaps the dullest film I have seen in years. I like Chuck, and it's a shame this couldn't be a great swansong for the legend but as it goes I'll have to whip out a copy of Delta Force or Lone Wolf McQuade and watch in his prime. *