Prime Cut (1972)

People say George Miller's had a varied career, but Michael Ritchie directed two Bad News Bears movies and the most intelligent political movie of the 1970's in The Candidate, as well as this, one of the decade's darkest and most outrageous crime thrillers. It's actually a film that could only have been made in the 70's, mixing an A-list cast (Lee Marvin! Gene Hackman! Sissy Spacek!), a Lalo Schiffrin score and high-budget action scenes with a bizarre array of plot points and a loathing of simple country folk comparable to Deliverance, which was released the same year.

Marvin plays Devlin, a hard-as-nails enforcer for the Chicago mob who's instructed to take a few men to rural Kansas to collect a debt from Mary Ann, the local crime boss and meatpacking plant owner, played by Hackman. The last guy who tried got sent back as sausages, which is only the start of the craziness and horror that awaits Devlin once he gets there. Seriously, it gets weird! And how is Warren Oates not in this?

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBW3Rlw4mlw

Tickets here. We can go for a pint somewhere nearby to discuss the film afterwards.