A cast of semi-famous actors flounder around in director Gino Cabanas' attempt at an action/comedy/western/heist film.
Cut Off tells the story of spoiled heiress Patricia Burton (London-born Amanda Brooks), distraught after she finds out that her billionaire father (Malcolm McDowell, not as angry as usual). So what does our intrepid spoiled brat decide to do? Make like a much dumber modern-day version of Bonnie & Clyde and go on a bank-robbing spree with her druggie boyfriend Pauly (Thomas Ian Nicholas, seeming to drop in and out of consciousness, literally). Too bad their very first attempt to rob a check-cashing store goes bad, leading them to hijack an ambulance and head for the border, driven there by all too cooperative EMT named Benny (Clint Howard of all people). Meanwhile, Burton's now divorced parents (McDowell and Faye Dunaway) fret and otherwise act concerned about what their daughter has gotten herself into. Daddy even begins to feel just a little guilty about abandoning her to live on a boat and sleep with women young enough to be his daughter. And oh yeah, a whole bunch of cops and FBI are on their tail.
If Cut Off sounds interesting, you'd be right. It does "sound" interesting from the synopsis and even the first forty or so minutes. The acting is decent across the board as well. McDowell especially is always fun to watch. Too bad the jumbled mess of styles begin to rear their respective ugly heads all too often late in the game, culminating with one of the worst cop-out endings I've seen in a long time. Without explicitly spoiling anything, I thought that these kind of audience-cheating endings had been done away with but apparently not. Feeling outright angry after watching this movie is not out of line, that's how bad the ending is.
Unfortunately, a bad ending isn't the film's only problem. The film decides that portraying the cops as bumbling dolts didn't go out of style about thirty years ago. From drinking beer in their squad car to telling off-color, racist, and just plain dumb jokes ad nauseum, the cops in this movie are an insult to the viewer's intelligence. Hell, they really never once provide entertainment to the movie and really don't do anything of note until the very end so why exactly did we need to keep cutting back to them? Just to hear another stupid joke about how Mexicans pay their bills at Taco Bell? Hardy har-har.
Cut Off could have been a fun genre stew. Instead, terrible writing hinders it every step of the way, making for a lame motion picture not worth anyone's time.
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