Prime Cut

A calloused, gritty, underrated 1972 crime drama, Prime Cut stars Lee Marvin as tough, hard-bitten mob enforcer Nick Devlin, who is sent to Kansas City to collect from a crooked stockyard mogul and meat-packing mobster with the unusual name of Mary Ann. The name is unusual because Mary Ann is a man (Gene Hackman), a mercenary who is expanding his business into selling girls while thumbing his nose at the Chicago players who bankrolled his operation. "Animal flesh, human flesh, it's all the same," is Mary Ann's motto. Devlin is strictly business, a man without sentimentality, but he draws the line at Mary Ann's flesh-peddling enterprise with underage girls whom he treats like cattle. Michael Ritchie directs with a lean style and offbeat flourishes of gallows humor as he twists crime movie conventions: the mob gunman from the big bad city of Chicago is the white knight here and the heartland folk are as corrupt as in any urban cesspool. Ritchie also delivers inventive and memorable set pieces, including a shotgun battle in the midst of the oblivious patrons of a country fair, and a chase through a wheat field as Devlin and threatened girl Poppy (Sissy Spacek in her film debut) run hand in hand from a thresher. But underneath the gangster movie drama lies a brutal satire of American commerce as an amoral culture in which everything is for sale. Making its Blu-ray debut, this is recommended. (S. Axmaker)