Southern Comfort (1981)

A squad of Louisiana National Guard are assigned a training problem in the midst of the swampy bayous. There they foolishly run afoul of Cajuns who live there. Thus a memorable struggle ensues.The squad is made up of guys thrown together more or less at random. So they're a diverse lot in terms of character and personality. Can they stay together as a unit as they've been trained or will personalities and abilities fracture their cohesion.Grueling movie, to say the least. Looks like the writers intended a tale of survival. It may also be more—namely, a tale of survival of the fittest, but fittest not in the usual sense of physically fittest. Rather, survival here has to do with feelings, ones of the instinctual kind that are often suppressed for hierarchical reasons like military rank. They're the kind neighbors might spontaneously show one another, the kind that makes social groupings possible. This amounts to an interesting idea that might apply here, that is, without my giving away too much. The cast does well on the whole, especially a subtle Carradine and the harried Lannom. I sure hope cast and crew got double pay for filming under most difficult conditions, namely wading through dirty water, dodging falling trees, and no chance to be heroic.One reason the film has not performed to filmmakers' expectations may be because of its portrayal of the French-American Cajuns. After all, they are firing on American soldiers, even though they've been provoked in stupid fashion. Still, I expect the joyous harmony of the community party was intended to compensate. But, if so, the party could have done without the bloody gutting of real hogs.All in all, it's an oddball film, not one to see if you're at all depressed. Nonetheless, suspense is on high throughout, along with some interesting ideas that I've tried to touch upon.

A squad of National Guard soldiers on a training exercise in a Louisiana swamp must fight for their lives after they incur the wrath of some Cajun trappers.I love the backwoods/survival genre, and with this one featuring an exceptional cast (Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, Brion James), it certainly had a lot of potential.Sadly, this Deliverance-inspired thriller failed to impress: Walter Hill's direction is sluggish and the film is overlong, with the majority of the action consisting of tedious slogging through the wetlands, the obnoxious characters behaving in a manner that doesn't seem at all credible given their training and predicament.Unlike Deliverance, which delivered plenty of tension and at least two bona fide classic scenes (duelling banjos, squeal like a pig), there is little noteworthy about Southern Comfort beyond the authentic swampy location, Ry Cooder's atmospheric music, and the final few minutes in which Hill finally injects some life into proceedings (too little, too late).4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

Walter Hill's Southern Comfort is the bees knees when it comes to backwoods survival thrillers. It's frightening, elemental, and relentless in pace, inciting primal fear in the viewer who finds themselves terrified of these events ever happening to them. It's a very overlooked film, with most of the kudos within this genre going to John Boorman's Deliverance. This one is way better, at least for me. The immediacy of the protagonist's situation, the hypnotic atmosphere of both score and cinematography working together for something really special. In rural Louisiana, a platoon of American soldiers prepares to embark into the tangled wilderness of the nearby bayou, attempting a routine training mission. Powers Boothe is awesome as Cpl. Charles Hardin, a well educated man who silently resents the roughnecks and dimwitted dead enders in his regiment. He's joined by Spencer (a cavalier Keith Carradine), and a whole host of others as well. Now, the Bayou is home to the reclusive and eccentric Cajun people, who apparently will keep to themselves if you do the same. But try telling that to a troupe of childish, immature GI's packing heavy artillery that's beyond both their pay grade and IQ. After one lugnut plays a nasty prank on a group of Cajun fisherman, they take it slightly personally. Before you can say crawfish, they promptly murder the commanding officer (Peter Coyote) and set a series of deadly traps and snares for the soldiers, out to send every last one of them to a swampy grave. It's a beautiful backwoods nightmare, and Hill tells the story exceptionally, aided by a twangy, brilliant score from his go to composer Ry Cooder. Boothe and Carradine are shoe ins to hold off their pursuers, while the rest of them soon fall prey, in elaborate and gruesome ways. Fred Ward is badass as a fellow soldier who turns homicidal, and has a wicked knife fight with Boothe that ramps up the adrenaline and then some. The late Brion James makes quite the impression as a Cajun who they briefly capture, after which he eerily warns them of the hell that's coming from his compadres. The locations feel authentic, damp and waterlogged as hell, making you feel every squelchy step these poor bastards take into the Bayou and closer to their end. Near the end of the film we are treated to some authentic live Cajun music (some of my favourite kind) from Dewey Balfa, a gorgeous interlude and showcase of Hill's desire to make the auditory atmosphere of his films as heightened and immersive as possible. An unheralded classic.

Of course, you might compare this film in many ways to Deliverance. Although this is a less better film, I'd opt to watch this instead. I love the performances in this film, especially Keith Carradine, who really struts his stuff, and I did like Powers Boothe, and we can't rule out Brion James, man of many faces, as a revenge driven shooter and yokel. Peter Coyote leads a training exercise, with his squad of U.S. marines (not the most likable sort), in the the murky swamps in the bayou, not the best place as you'll find out. When making the mistakes of stealing these yokel's canoes, begins a game of vengeance, where one by one the squad are picked off, where inevitably we have the two survivor factor. Some of the characters are so arrogant (esp. Fred Ward) where quite frankly, I was glad to see the back of some of them. The movie actually becomes better the more it progresses, resulting in some real tasty entertainment. The thrills are in wondering how the next soldier is gonna get it, or how the squad intend to outsmart them, with the next plan of strategy. Southern Comfort is quite violent too, amid exploding brains and matter, or watch a pig get gutted. I loved the music scores in this. It's last fifteen minutes is almost, as when the surviving two are in the company of a festival of town folk, it's quite eerie, as to tell which are good or bad. You don't know in this sea of yokels. Powers Boothe was quite a reason to watch this, as I do like that actor, but the others hold their own too. A very made film in the tradition of Deliverance. Enjoy.