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In the Cut (Unrated and Uncut Director's Edition)

In the Cut (Unrated and Uncut Director's Edition)

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: In The Cut: Brilliant!!
Review: The movie was a great surprise to me and my friends when we went to see it. At first it appeared to be a typical independent type movie, with the usual expectation of a rather depressing outlook on life accompanied with a very raw cinematography, and usually little hope for a happy ending. However this is the first film I've seen that successfully incorporates the rawness and up front honesty of the characters lives, combined with the great, well written storyline and wonderful acting. And the cinematography, although raw, provided some beautiful scenes, and the symbolism and use of focus put the viewer in Franny's mindset of a very creative person, who doesn't see life through typical eyes. It was quite 'trippy' and I found it to be very original.

The movie centralises around Franny (Meg Ryan) and her encounter with a police detective (Mark Ruffalo) after she witnesses something that might be important to a murder that is committed. At first it seems that it would be impossible for a relationship to begin between the two but as the movie progresses a surprisingly sweet love story plays out. I first thought that the writers had resigned to a predictable 'who done it' in order to focus on the relationship that was blossoming, however I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't realise who the killer was, till it was actually revealed to the audience.

Meg Ryan's performance was brilliant and she really pulls off the change of image well!! And Mark Ruffalo was so magnetic, you can really fall in love with him. His character has a rough surface with a sweet caring middle and Mark Ruffalo really portrays this perfectly.

In The Cut was very dark, yet very enjoyable and satisfying. It has a beautiful balance of eroticism, romance and thriller. My friends and I honestly couldn't stop talking about it for at least three days and we've seen it many times since and still love it!! I've recommended this movie to all my friends!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Porno with a Plot
Review: It takes a lot to shock me, but I was shocked by this film and disappointed that Meg Ryan's career has come to this. Sure, she was probably a little tired of all of the fluffy romantic comedies, but to do a film like this was probably not the kind of exposure (wink, wink) her career needed.

The movie is unnecessarily dark and explicit, as the graphic sex and language do precious little to contribute to the plot. The Supreme Court knows pornography when it sees it, and so do I. This, my friends, is essentially mass-market porn with a thread of a plot.

Other than Ryan, few of the characters are particularly interesting, especially Ruffalo's tough-guy cop and Jennifer Jason Leigh's whiny half-sister. In fact, Leigh's character is so annoying that I felt relief instead of pity when her character met her fate. The only other character of interest is an all-too-brief appearance by Kevin Bacon as a disturbed ex-boyfriend trapped in a storyline that doesn't go anywhere in particular. Bacon deserves better.

Even Campion's filmmaking is poor in this outing. The pace of the film for the first hour will have you constantly checking your watch and wondering if the film will ever make any sense. To its credit, the film does redeem itself somewhat in the final act, leading the viewer convincingly down one path and then changing course dramatically and abruptly. If not for the hour and a half of lasciviousness leading up to the ending, the film might actually be reasonably good. As it stands, it comes off as an almost porn-noir attempt at an art film.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What a Freaking Bore!
Review: The title says it all. Don't bother watching unless you enjoy being bored to death.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Boring and a lack of an interesting plot
Review: From the beginning I started falling asleep. Couldn't understand from one scene to the next and everybody seemed bored, uninteresting and the story did not make any sense. Is this a thriller or a macabre attempt to create a story that isn't even interesting. Why was her sister killed? Doesn't make any sense. Very dark and very long... Poor effort on every one's part at making this movie interesting.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Moody, Subdued Thriller
Review: In the Cut features a decidedly unglamorous Meg Ryan as a repressesd schoolteacher dating a cop played by Mark Ruffalo, who she suspects of being a serial killer. This is one moody and unsuspenseful whodunnit. On the plus side, the acting is very good, with Ryan miles away from her bubbly "When Harry Met Sally" image and it did keep me guessing untiul the end. Although there was a palpable sense of dread throughout the film, Ryan's character was so profoundly detatched from everyone around her that I never really cared what happened to her. Jennifer Jason Leigh adds another doomed stripper to her already impressive gallery of tragic junkie/stripper/whore roles. Maybe she should take a break for awhile and try another type of role.
This movie which is directed by Jane Campion and produced by Nicole Kidman uses New York locales better than any movie I've seen in quite awhile. Meg Ryan really played down her looks in the film, but her body sure looks good in what are some of the most explicit nude scenes I've seen in mainstream film maybe ever. This movie would have benefitted from a little more editing, at 2 hours long, there is an awful lot of lingering camera shots of cats and rain and subway trains. A slightly faster pace and shorter running time might have made this a tad more suspenseful.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: pure dribble,all in dark,rotten audio
Review: This is the biggest bunch of dribble I have ever seen. I think the whole film was shot in the dark. Even if meg ryan tryed to show something you would sure never see it. This has lousy audio, you can't hear snything and all of a sudden they try to break your eardrums with some car sound of something else dumb. I have no idea why meg ryan made this mess, If she needs money this bad mabe she should take up bartending

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: mixed feelings
Review: A film by Jane Campion

I had fairly low expectations going into "In the Cut" that I couldn't help but enjoy the movie more than I thought I would. The critical reaction to the movie has been negative, and though I see the point of the critics, I only partially agree. The problem, as I see it, is that the buzz on this movie is that "In the Cut" started being seen as "the movie where Meg Ryan gets naked" rather than anything about the actual story. There is a bit more to "In the Cut" than that buzz.

The story is that Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) is investigating a brutal murder and evidence was left outside the apartment building where Frannie (Meg Ryan) lives. Malloy questions Frannie, and they end up in a relationship based almost entirely on the physical. The focus of the film stays on the relationship at the expense of the murder plotline. How this mixes together is that Frannie starts to suspect that possibly Malloy is the killer. Yet, Frannie stays in this intensely sexual relationship even with her doubts.

The trouble that I had with this movie was that I wasn't sure that director Jane Campion ever decided on whether this is an erotic love story or a murder mystery, and the film suffers a bit because of that. At no time did I feel that there was nudity for the sake of nudity, but if it was also meant to be sensual and erotic, it wasn't. The sex and the nudity in the movie were just there. It was nice to see Meg Ryan in a dramatic role, as she is a very capable actress ("When a Man Loves a Woman", "Courage Under Fire"), but I am left with mixed feelings on "In the Cut". I didn't feel much chemistry between Ryan and Ruffalo. Oddly enough, the best chemistry (and sexual tension) comes between Frannie and her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). To use Roger Ebert's rating system, my thumb is wavering between up and down, and that would tell me to go with thumbs down if I can't honestly recommend "In the Cut".

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: worst movie this year (2004)
Review: This is yet the worst movie of this year. I thought that as the years advance Hollywood would push to make more intelligent movies? What happened? Are we regressing? Call me at 156-38-3461.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Awful
Review: I can't believe I wasted my money renting this movie, then paying late charges because I kept putting off finishing watching it. Shame on me for being a gullible consumer and for wanting to see Ms. Ryan nekked, which was nice but didn't make up for the rest of the movie.

This movie is a mess. Hand-held camera shots substitute for verité; dreary songs substitute for plot; swear words substitute for grittiness; senseless coincidences (e.g., red lighthouses) substitute for portent; characters act completely against reason; loose ends abound. Stay away, far away, from this movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: was this a comedy?
Review: This is one of those movies where a realistic conversation never, ever takes place. Every sentence uttered from each characters mouth comes from some alternate universe; never spoken on earth except in existential, miserable hollywood movies. I wait and wait for them to just talk about something banal and common, but no, instead we have pseudo-profound meanderings. "Hey, how are you feeling today?"
"Terrible, would you like to make love to my shoes.?"

I admire Meg Ryan for taking a risk and attempting to shed the cutesy image, but dragging herself around like a miserable slob like she does in this movie is too much to the other extreme. There were points I almost forgot she was in the movie because her character is so empty of life. She has nothing to say.

Every character is so jaded, bitter, cynical, depressed, to the point where it's comical. Or was I fooled and this really is a comedy? Instead of being arousing, the sex scenes are embarassing, and Meg Ryans famed nudity is...well okay that wasn't so bad. That the director Jane Campion takes herself so seriously I can easily say this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. And no, not because I'm dumb and only enjoy action flicks.


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