The performance Jeff Bridges is adamant “should have been nominated” for an Oscar
Few actors have been as good for as long as Jeff Bridges, who, since he burst onto the scene with 1971’s The Last Picture Show, has seen a non-stop string of hits.
He’s been nominated for an Oscar in four different decades, helped to launch the biggest film franchise of all time, and entertained millions of fans across several different generations, but one film that even the most ardent Bridge-heads would struggle to remember is Cutter’s Way.
Directed by Ivan Presser, it follows a wounded Vietnam veteran, Alex Cutter, and his friend, Richard Bone (talk about nominative determinism), when Bone (that’s Bridges, by the way) gets accused of murder, and Cutter goes after the ones who have tried to bring him down.
The movie has little more than a cult following these days, but it’s stuck in Bridges’ mind for years, such that in an interview with Total Film, looking back at his career, he took some time to speak about Cutter’s Way.
He made sure to mention how good he thought it was and how it took a whole team of brilliant people to make it happen. “Ivan was, I don’t want to say passive, but he said very little and created this wonderful sort of atmosphere where it could all take place,” he revealed.
He continued, “Jordan Cronenweth shot it beautifully, and Jack Nietzsche did a beautiful score done entirely with German women playing champagne glasses. It was amazing. John Heard gave a really remarkable performance. He should have been nominated for an Academy Award.”
You’ll probably know John Heard as Kevin’s neglectful father from the Home Alone series, and in Cutter’s Way, he plays the title role, showcasing a very different side of himself. Having lost an eye, an arm, and a leg in the war, Cutter is extremely bitter at the world, and when one of his only friends finds himself on the wrong end of the law, he takes justice into his own hands with no regard for his own safety or that of anyone else’s. It’s an intense performance with depth you wouldn’t expect from a thriller.
While far from one of the greatest anti-war movies ever made, Cutter’s Way, which was originally called Cutter and Bone, does a great job in exploring the harsh realities of life for wounded soldiers, but sadly, people didn’t pick up on this at the time. United Pictures barely promoted the movie, so it flew mostly under the radar, and neither was Heard nominated for any major awards for this movie, with his sole recognition from a prominent body coming in 1999, when he was nominated for an Emmy for a guest spot on The Sopranos before dying in 2017 at the age of 71.
Bridges often sticks up for his underseen movies in interviews; the fact that he took time to not only mention Cutter’s Way, but to single out the individuals involved proves what kind of guy he is. John Heard might have never gotten his hands on an Oscar, but his legacy lives on through his great performances and the praise of his adoring co-star.
