chrichtonsworld
Somehow I got the feeling that they left out a considerable amount of scenes that make much more sense of the whole drugs angle in the movie. The moment Stephen Baldwin goes undercover you will get a "Point Break" flashback and will realize how great that movie is compared to this little movie. But that said I must admit that "Cutaway" has some amazing sky diving scenes. Those stunts alone is reason enough to see this movie. And probably the director realized that since he didn't make much of the plot. Tom Berenger is great as always but thought he was far too underused as he could have provided much more depth to his character and story if he had more scenes. The interactions between Ron Silver and Stephen Baldwin could have been avoided entirely since they add nothing to the conflicts an undercover agent has doing his job. Since it already is made clear from the first scene that Stephen Baldwin is not doing his job out of a sense of duty but simply to be the best in whatever activity he is presented with. The scenes with Ron Silver create an expectation of an impact that never occurs at least not as big as it could have been. So in short forget about the plot and just enjoy the beautiful skydiving scenes!
alicensedoug
This movie with its excellent skydive scenes gives the viewer a good idea of what this fun, exciting, and spectacular sport is really like. It would look even better on a big screen. Other movies, like Drop Zone or Terminal Velocity have a similar story complete with skydiving and cops chasing criminals, but Cutaway is better and more realistic than either. Even the part about having good freefall skills after all that wind tunnel training in Fort Bragg, S.C. is believable. Of course he (Officer Cooper) still had much work to do with this canopy control skills (Remember some of his landings!). All throughout the movie, the jump scenes were enjoyable to watch as they were so authentic looking. You could tell these scenes were actually filmed in the air above Florida and not in a studio or with a computer. The story itself is also quite believable; no doubt many kilos of drugs have been parachuted into Florida or elsewhere. Even the name of the movie was chosen well; you actually do cutaway if your main parachute malfunctions. Besides all of the above, it had some funny parts also.This movie never made it big like other movies in 2000, which is too bad. Nowadays, for an action movie to be popular it appears to need a lot of expensive special effects. Cutaway may have been too realistic for most of today's viewing audience. If you want to see those amazing special effects you won't like this movie, but if you want a good fun action movie with some element of reality, this one's for you.Presently, I am a skydiver with my A license. After watching this movie, I am eagerly looking forward to getting my B license so I can do relative work (or formation jumps). If you've never jumped before, watching this movie may well convince you to try this fun sport. If not, you'll certainly want to go out to a drop zone and watch others jump. Blue Skies!
Renaldo Matlin
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.
donpepe
Cutaway is an advertisement for sky-diving; it is not a movie. I repeat, beware, this no movie. It is, however, horrible, even for a commercial. I know this may not mean much, but Dennis Rodman gives the worst performance of his career, if such a thing is even possible. The story line is a horibily mutated version of point break, which makes the script for point break seem both plausible and interesting. If you are an aficianado of bad movies rent this immediately; the bad acting of this movie really has to be experienced first hand. Just remember to cutaway all your cutaways or you will be cutaway.
AD
