Movie Review: Cutaway

Cutaway 

Artisan Entertainment, Cutting Edge Entertainment, Golden ParaShoot Entertainment, Liaison Entertainment, USA, 2000. 

Lieutenant Brian Margate (Ron Silver) authorizes perfectionist Customs Agent Victor Cooper (Stephen Baldwin) back to active duty [note: the DVD cover claims his name to be Victor Caruso, wroooong!]. Then they raid a shrimp shipment. Vic figures it out that drug smugglers use skydivers to avoid the law's long arm.  

Victor Cooper

Brian Margate

Vic meets cute skydiving instructor Star (Maxine Bahns). She works in a skydiving team with team's leader Red Line (Tom Berenger) and hothead Turbo (Dennis Rodman). The team seems to get money from some suspicious source. To find out more about the smugglers Vic gets a crash course on parachuting from Sergeant Delmira (Casper Van Dien). 

Star

Red Line

Turbo

Soon Vic is a skydiving virtuoso and gains the respect of the skydivers. An important contest is coming and the team must train hard. Turbo however suspects that Vic is more than just a natural talent. 

Delmira

Skydiving!

Considering that I bought this for 50 cents and the DVD cover was generic at best this was a positive surprise. The director Guy Manos is better known for his work as aerial stunts coordinator. Also in this film the most impressive scenes are the parachuting and base jumping scenes. It seems that at least Berenger and Baldwin did their own stunts. The plot is quite tongue-in-cheek "Point Break" variation and surprisingly fun. The cast has a good number of B-movie stars, only Baldwin's acting seems weird at times, almost "Nicolas Cage" weird. Adam Wylie, Zach from "Picket Fences" appears as Cal, one of the skydivers.

Cal

Rating: Good

Starring: Tom Berenger, Stephen Baldwin, Dennis Rodman, Maxine Bahns, Ron Silver, Roy Ageloff, Marcos A. Ferraez, Adam Wylie, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Phillip Glasser, Casper Van Dien, Cat Stone, Allison McKay, William Booth, Rena McPherron, Sam Blount Jr., Danielle Waxman, Ed Berliner, Tony Griffin, Sam Blount, Craig Fronk, Jefferey Jones, Troy Manos, Rex Manos, Robert Small, Bennett Liss, Trish Dempsey, Tiffinni Saint Ranae
Director: Guy Manos