The recent trailer for The Cut looked interesting. I made a joke about watching Orlando Bloom getting hit in the face; however, I was wrong.
The Cut stars Orlando Bloom, Caitriona Balfe, John Turturro, Clare Dunne, Gary Beadle, Ed Kear, Oliver Trevena, and Mohammed Mansarary. Sean Ellie directs with Justin Bull and Mark Lane penning the script.
The Story
Weirdly, The Cut isn’t about boxing:
A retired boxer returns to the ring for one last shot at the title but only if he can make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas he embarks on an intensive and illegal weight cut program with an unscrupulous trainer.
Boxer (Bloom) is ready for a big comeback fight in Vegas. Everything is set, but he’s overweight by a few pounds. That’s not too much of an issue, right?
Wrong, he’s already lean, but the final few pounds are harder to lose. He pushes himself, sweats himself, and doesn’t eat himself thinner.
It’s not going well, so they call in Boz (Turturro) to help him with the last bit of weight. His methods are questionable, very questionable. The ultimate question is, how far does the boxer go to meet the cut?
The Cast
People joke about Bloom, which is a bit of a shame, as he’s a perfectly good actor. In The Cut, the goes from ‘pretty good’ to amazing. I’ve read that people have put this down as a ‘career-defining role’ for him, and they are right.
Boxer puts himself through hell, and by the end of the movie, you realise what hell is. There were times I was genuinely concerned for Bloom. You know how sometimes you think that actors are genuinely going through a lot for a role? The Cut is one of those movies.
You can imagine that working on Pirates of the Caribbean was all tropical locations and playing with swords. The Cut is not that, it’s hard work, pain, and you can see that Bloom pushed himself to the max.
The rest of the cast are very good, but another standout is Turturro as Boz. Boz knows what the boxer can achieve, but he also knows he’s got to push more and more, to the point of breaking. In the movie, Bloom even goes beyond that.
Overall
There isn’t much to say about the story for The Cut; it’s all about the prep of a boxing match. You don’t see the match in the end, although there is a satisfying conclusion. I’m not a big one for boxing; it’s not my thing. As I said, though, The Cut isn’t really about boxing.
It’s about pushing yourself, how deep you would go to make the cut, how much do you want it? I know I push myself. When I have to review movies, it’s an effort; I have to sit on the sofa, watch the movie, remember the names of the people in it, then sit at my computer and write it up. It’s hard work.
The Cut pushes the boxer to places I could never go. It’s a really tense movie, I felt tied just watching it. Bloom really does stand out in this, his performance is outstanding.
I’m giving The Cut a solid 4 out of 5 stars. It’s one of those movies I wouldn’t tend to watch, but I’m glad I took the time to review it. It’s a hard watch, but a good movie.
The Cut is in select UK cinemas from today.
Here is a clip from the movie:
