The director's cut was the original version and they sexed it up and pushed out the original director to make it more audience friendly. Modern audiences hate the more restrained 70s style Helgeland was using.
The purpose of the original was to focus on the concept of principle versus the concept of being pragmatic and erring more on the side of self preservation. The mechanics of the story in the original version is to make it look like Porter has lost even if he won, cause the ending suggests he's mortally wounded. The theatrical version is more of a happy ending the good guy wins. The theatrical version also cut several scenes that show Porter being much less of a good guy. They completely removed the part at the beginning where he beats his drug addict wife, which made the whole idea of him coming there to help her seem less altruistic, and there were a few other things he did in the alternate final act that were more bad guy oriented, such as one cold blooded killing for pretty much no real reason than he didn't like the guy.
Also the cheesy voice over made the film goofy, the tone of the director's cut is more restrained and dark, and the music in the director's cut is way better, not being a cliche. I mean the Voodoo Child part in the theatrical version was just stupid and predictable.
Director's Cut was odd because it wasn't like a typical hollywood film, at least of this era. The theatrical version was a version that was deliberately compromized to make it friendly to modern audiences who are unfamiliar with the style Helgeland was going for.
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