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Prime Cut (1972, d. Michael Ritchie) From its extended title sequence, a long journey through a slaughterhouse and meat processing facility used by its owner, crooked Kansas City eminence Mary Ann (Gene Hackman) to rid himself of unwanted visitors, one can tell that the film is going to combine menace and offbeat humor in that deadpan way of the best American films of the early 1970’s. When semi-retired Irish mobster Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) is dispatched from Chicago to bring Mary Ann back in line, he discovers the ranch is trafficking in human flesh as well as bovine. A gentleman’s gentleman, Devlin rescues a young girl (Sissy Spacek) from sexual enslavement and sets about bringing down the overly confident (and possibly insane) Mary Ann. There are some minor detours along the way, but the simple plot is not the point. It’s more about great individual moments, such as a scene in which Mary Ann and his sausage-chomping hulk of a brother (Gregory Walcott) engage in an impromptu wrestling match in his kitchen as a squadron of eyeshade-clad book cooking accountants looks on. Ritchie film doesn’t rank among his best work (The Candidate, The Bad News Bears), nor among the best of this (to my thinking, anyway) great era in American film, but if the mention of quirky tough guys, washed out color palettes, and vintage Lalo Schifrin scores gets your movie-watching juices flowing, Prime Cut is definitely worth checking out. The newly-issued DVD from Paramount features a nice transfer and good monaural sound, but is devoid of special features.

Head On [Gegen die Wand] (2004, d. Fatih Akin) Cahit Tomruk (Birol Űnel) is an immigrant Turk living in Hamburg, earning money for booze and drugs by picking up empty bottles in a club. He’s a shell of a man, lacking human connection, old enough to have attended the old school punk shows whose posters cover the walls of his tiny trash-strewn flat. When a drunken car crash lands Cahit in the hospital, he meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), a young woman whose repressively traditional Turkish family has driven her to attempt suicide. She wants to experience sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll—in other words, the life of a typical western girl. She offers Cahit a deal: if he will marry her so that she can escape her family, she will cook, clean, take care of him—be his wife in all respects except the conjugal. Perhaps recognizing a kindred lost soul, he grudgingly agrees, and what follows constitutes one of the most original and touching love stories I’ve seen in years.

Of course, nothing proceeds according to Hollywood template, which makes Head On unexpectedly moving, even as it careens between the comic and the tragic. Akin juxtaposes scenes of nearly unbearable brutality with those of surprising tenderness. Despite their often stupid behavior, he evinces a profound empathy with the characters; he understands that sometimes we surrender to self-destructive impulses because they’re the only way we can feel alive. With wonderful performances by Űnel and Kekilli and a distinctive (but never ostentatious) sense of style, Head On is a true punk rock “love story” that’s no less effective for its lack of conventionality. Highly recommended.