Instinto Radical

An odd mix between undercover-cop-infiltrating-the-bad-guys and sports-movies! It does have a likeable cast and some terrific skydiving-scenes (the lead actors obviously jumped in real life). But what really makes it entertaining enough to sit through is the flamboyant performance of good old Tom Berenger, reminding us of what once made him one of the finest actors on-screen. Here he really is half the show in a 9 million dollar production that looks like 20 million.

I enjoyed this film. Baldwin is a cop investigating elusive drug traffickers. Berenger is the leader of a sky diving team that Baldwin suspects of being behind the trafficking. I picked this movie up because of Casper Van Dien's part. He appears at the beginning as a military trainer Baldwin hires to steady his skills. Van Dien later appears again at the end as a competitive adversary to Baldwin's team. Watching all of the sky diving and training was very interesting. Most of the suspense was during flight instead of during "law enforcement" confrontations as one might expect. The WIND tunnel where Van Dien trained Baldwin looked SO fun! Baldwin's turmoil is mostly trying to balance his loyalty to the sky diving team and the police force. The ending isn't really predictable, but it's not surprising either. Certainly worth a watch!

The successful undercover agent Victor Cooper (Stephen Baldwin) is assigned for his ninth mission: to find how the loading of drug that is being brought to Miami. He suspects that the drug is coming through the air and joins a team of sky diving, under the leadership of Red Line (Tom Berenger), who is a fanatic and considered the athlete number one in this sport in the world. Due to his profile of winner, Vic gets involved with the group and he "disconnects" from his position of infiltrated agent, "connecting" with the team.

"Cutaway" is a film that gives the sensation of "dejavu", and the viewer has the sensation that had seen it before. Indeed, it is a collection of clichés, using the same storyline of "Point Break" but in the air, instead of in the sea; or "Donnie Brasco", just to mention two famous movies. However, "Cutaway" reasonably works and is watchable, mainly based on the great shootings in the air. Fans of Tom Berenger may enjoy and he has a good performance in the role of a charismatic leader, capable of any action to win in the sports he embraced. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Instinto Radical" ("Radical Instinct")

Manos walks an interesting line between hype and facts all through the commentary. He stresses that Stephen Baldwin (Agent Vic Cooper) and Tom Berenger (Red Line) did their own stunts and without actually saying "all their own stunts", certainly implies it. Clearly that's not the case. He also implies that Dennis Rodman (Turbo) does his own stunts as well, but from what I understand from other sources, Rodman never even got near a plane in flight.

Manos does admit that he did -some- of the stunts for Red Line when Berenger was "unavailable." Manos' wife, Pam, does the skydiving for Maxine Bahns (Star), the female lead. Manos never fesses up as to who does the more advanced skydiving scenes (head down, swoop pond, ect.) for Baldwin. With the exception of Casper Van Dien (Delmira), those really are the Golden Knights and that's the wind tunnel at Fort Bragg, SC.

There are a couple of interesting factoids sprinkled throughout the commentary such as how so and so shot was done, how some of the action sequences were performed and that Marcos A. Ferraez (Ground Rush) was actually a skydiving buddy of Baldwin's before production was even given the green light. However, the really interesting stuff to me was how the script was developed and how some of the scenes and events were based upon Manos' true life experiences. I got the feeling that maybe at some point Manos actually had considered the tandem drug running scheme and he does mention that it had been done a couple of times maybe ten or so years ago to actually help finance a Nationals team.

I'm not sure where fact and hype merge here.

Manos does explain things about keeping the story, costumes and sport simple enough for the audience to understand yet "real", but he never explains his choice of the "8-way speed star" event. I'm thinking just 2 more people would have made that a lot more "real", but there was probably a budget consideration (23 shooting days x 2 people, costumes, hotel rooms, catering, pack jobs, ect.).

To my surprise, there are ALSO comments on yet another audio track from Baldwin and Bahns. I haven't yet fully listened to those, but it's clear from the sample I did listen to that they must have been having a -really- good time, maybe even a little tipsy (maybe a LOT tipsy), when they recorded them. I'll have to fully listen to those in the near future.

Paul

If you truly savor a bad movie once in a while, "Cutaway" will be a tasty treat that will have you coming back for seconds. It's got everything - a sullen Dennis Rodman who has about three lines (yet gets third billing), fat, old, and drunk-looking Academy Award nominee Tom Beringer spouting insane dialogue (sad, really), Steven Baldwin giving the blandest performance ever committed to film, Casper Van Dien overacting and making menacing facial expressions, Ron Silver being Ron Silver, an awful token love interest chick, and lots and lots of annoying supporting characters. And that's just the cast! The story, involving skydiving and drug smuggling and a "cop who gets in too deep", is not only horribly written but a rip-off of the plots of "Drop Zone" and "Point Break"! The movie was made by the Manos brothers, who apparently have a lot of experience filming skydiving. And they do it well. But pretty skydiving scenes can't make up for the overall poor quality of this movie. It might make you laugh, it might make you cry. But you must see Cutaway, if only to see just how bad it can get.