Prime Cut

A film set in Kansas. There is a crime organisation in Chicago. They sent money to Kansas and got nothing back. They send a man there. Nick Devlin is a collector. Calm, measured, and he uses no unnecessary violence. They had sent someone before him. He did not come back. The man in Kansas is Mary Ann. He owns a meat business and an abattoir. He is coarse, he laughs, and he takes nothing seriously. Nick arrives. From there the film is a story of collection. The two sides talk and do not agree. Something else is running at the abattoir. He sells girls. Young women taken from orphanages are kept in a barn and sold at auction. Nick sees it. He takes one and leaves. A woman called Poppy. The narrative gives her no background and she barely speaks. From there the film is a story of flight. There is a chase in a wheat field. A combine harvester is after the car and the scene is held long. A sunflower field, a fairground, a river. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but meat: its whole visual language is that; the killing of cattle, a sausage machine, hooks, and people kept in the same place. The narrative hides the comparison not at all. Mary Ann's brother Weenie is in the business too and is more dangerous. The violence is sudden. The narrative prepares no scene. The ending is short. The images are open and bright. Fields, sun and wide frames; the narrative builds its fear in daylight rather than darkness. Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman face each other. Michael Ritchie directed. Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Angel Tompkins and Sissy Spacek are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1970s American crime cinema and hard genre films. Who it is not for: anyone who does not want to be disturbed; the trafficking line is shown directly and the narrative does not soften it.