Bad Day for the Cut - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Bad Day For the Cut

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

​

Movie
One of the quotes from the trailer for Bad Day for the Cut is that it is “An Irish Blue Ruin”, and that assertation is accurate to a certain degree. The two movies are very methodically paced revenge thrillers (albeit by different directors in completely different cultures), and share the same somber simplicity that makes these types of movies good. Now, while I LOVED Blue Ruin (the sophomore work from director Jeremy Saulnier, who also directed the 2015 horror flick Green Room), I only ended up enjoying Chris Baugh’s Bad Day for the Cut. Also reminiscent of the Coen Brother’s style, this Irish tale of vengeance has a certain flair and style to it that is extremely palpable to the viewers, and mixes in well with their troubled history of violence and societal upheaval. The Irish are kind of known for their stereotypical temper, but it’s usually for a good reason. In this case, hundreds of years of being under the rule of the Brits, and society built upon physical (or emotional) disobedience against those who control them. This has created a persona that is embodied in the violence and harshness of Bad Day, even if it’s not entirely related to their IRA, and struggle for survival.

Nigel O’Neill plays Donal, a poor aging farmer tending his fields and doting on his aging mother, Florence (Stella McCusker). He works on old cars as a hobby (and for cash) to supplement their meager income, but the two seem decently content together. That is until one night working out on his cars, Donal hears a scream from the house and runs back to see someone exiting the abode at full speed, and finding his mother with her head caved in inside. Going back out, Donal is confronted by a pair of masked thugs who try to hang him off of his own tractor to make it look like he did the deed himself. Turning the tables on the punks, Donal kills one and pumps the other (a young Polish kid by the name of Bartosz) for information about WHO did the deed. Bartosz (Pawlowski) doesn’t know much, just that he was supposed to kill the farmer, in exchange for his sister’s freedom from a life of prostitution.

However, the real mastermind for the plot happens to be a cold hearted business woman named Frankie Pierce (Susan Lynch), who appears to be the head of this giant crime ring. It’s not clear WHY Frankie had Donal’s mother killed, or why she had a target painted on the farmer’s back, but Donal doesn’t give two hoots why. At this point he’s is going to use Batrosz (after they help free his sister from Frankie’s goons) to get to her and wring every last drop of blood from her system as payback for his suffering.

Bad Day for the Cut opens up with a seemingly unrelated sequence where an unseen female is questioning and torturing an elderly man in a hospital, so you can already be clued into the fact that not everything is going to be straight forward here. There is much more at play than just a random killing, and it is slowly revealed over the course of the hour and forty minute film that Donal and Frankie’s family have more ties than just a chance occurrence. That little clue at the beginning is supported by Donal’s mother’s reaction to the newspaper telling of said old man’s death, but it’s not until the second half of the film that we actually find out WHY (something I’ll let the film uncover instead of spoiling here).

This little revengee thriller is a wee bit more grounded than most. Films like Taken have actors (ironically Irish) like Liam Neeson whispering about having a specific set of skills, and then slaughtering bad guys with impunity. Donal is literally JUST a farmer. He has no specific set of skills besides being a jack of all trades guy with his hands, and a solid imagination. He uses every day objects as instruments of torture (an iron, a boiling hot pot of beans), and pure rage to fuel his quest forward. Even his wins are accomplished at great cost to himself physically, and by the end of the film you feel the same sense of exhaustion that the old man must be feeling.

The movie is simplistic and straight forward, and even though it has a few twists and turns, those twists and turns are fairly straight forward to the genre. While it may not make it a shockingly great movie, it DOES feel a lot like comfort food. Good, goes down smooth, and even though it isn’t healthy or a gourmet meal, is satisfying at the end of the day. Everyone except for Susan Lynch’s Frankie feels very raw and organic, as if they really are just simple lay folk. Frankie is cream of the crop in society (rich as she is), so Susan’s ice cold portrayal of Frankie is well within the scope of her character. The final act loses a bit of momentum, but the very ending once again brings me back to the “leave things up in the air, yet so obvious” style of Ethan and Joel Cohen. A move which I greatly appreciated, as the simplistic nature of the film feeds off of that slight ambiguity and tension, instead of just spilling EVERYTHING out on the table.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

I can’t find any concrete information through my sources or the web on the types of cameras used, but I would be very surprised if it was anything other than digital by nature. The Irish film is very dim, with most of the first half taking place at night, or inside of dimly lit indoor arenas, so black levels are paramount. The detail is very solid, and there is a distinct greenish/yellow tinge to the color grading that leaves the color saturation levels a bit flat. In the daylight, with bright sunlight, the film’s clarity and overall details levels pick up a good bit, as does the color saturation. The green/yellow tinge is less noticeable, and primaries actually have a few moments where they pop a good bit (usually around Frankie’s house). The film’s encodes is rather well done, with the only issues to speak about is some black crush and some color banding that is most apparent on the camel colored interior walls that crop up throughout the film.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA that’s given to us on the disc is also quite nice for the film at hand. It DOES feel a bit “bland” at times, but that’s mainly because it’s not asked to do anything fairly awe inspiring or amazing. What it IS asked to do is done quite nicely and very very efficiently. The Dialog is easy to hear (but you might need subtitles as the Irish slang and accents were a bit much for my American ears), and the surrounds get a lot of activity when Donal and Bartosz get down to business in their hunt for Frankie and Bartosn’s sister. LFE is deep and throaty, adding some weight to the sound of gunshots and the score, but otherwise mildly complimentary throughout the movie. The score itself is even and clear, and I did notice (more of a curiosity than a complaint), that the action sequences were given music very reminiscent out of something you would hear as elevator music. A good mix, and does everything with ease.





Extras:

• Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

Bad Day for the Cut may not set the world on fire as the next great revenge thriller, but it is a very competent film that is worth watching if you enjoy slower paced films like this. There is more than enough brutal action to keep it interesting, but also a somber sense of melancholy that keeps it from being a gleeful action romp like Taken or the like. Chris Baugh does a good job at delivering tension based within reality, and even though there was some momentum lost in the last act of the movie, it keeps you glued to the screen to see what the aging farmer will do to avenge his mum’s death. Audio and video are well done from Well Go USA, but the extras are typically slim (pretty much just a few trailers). Definitely worth a good watch.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Nigel O'Neill, Susan Lynch, Jozef Pawlowski
Directed by: Chris Baugh
Written by: Brendan Mullin, Chris Baugh
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 2.0
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: January 9th, 2018

Image

• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Good Watch