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Southern Comfort (1981)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
5/20, 4/21
5/20:
Somewhat reminding me of John Milius, I hate Walter Hill and think of him a lousy director, but Southern Comfort is
the best film he has ever done.
I've seen The Driver, The Warriors,
48 Hrs., and Last Man Standing and find
them to be masturbatory pictures for clueless fanboys. They represent a macho idea of what it's like to be cool, but
there's no substance.
What makes Southern Comfort different from the rest is it begins with an excellent screenplay. Hence, the
characters are real who are played on by psychological games. The atmosphere is set up at
the beautifully photographed bayou of Louisiana. Combining them, the story plays out like
Deliverance and
And Then There Were None
with a bit of The Wicker Man thrown in.
The performances rendered by the cast are outstanding: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Brion James, Peter Coyote, Fred Ward,
Alan Autry, Les Lannom, Franklyn Seales (in a rare movie role), and Lewis Smith. Sonny Landham is one of the French
Canjun hunters although it's hard to tell by looking at his face.
So, whose fault is it? Honestly, the Louisiana National Guardsmen made a huge mistake by taking the pirogues in the first
place; they should've kept walking on and minded their own business. Then, Stuckey committed the most boneheaded act of all time by firing at the French
Cajuns despite his gun being filled with blanks. It's when the war was on, and I can't blame them. The last twenty
minutes is eerily good with lots of disquietude. My initial thought was: "If you hear French Cajun, just run away.
Don't even think about it." Unfortunately, Spencer and Hardin accepted the ride, and things took a turn for the worse again.
All in all, possibly a metaphor for the mistakes made in the Vietnam War, Southern Comfort is a brilliantly directed
Kafka-esque picture by Walter Hill.
4/21:
By far the best film Walter Hill has ever done, Southern Comfort is the most apt metaphor of what happened in the
Vietnam War.
Unthinkable mistakes, lack of established leadership, zero clue of the terrain or where to go, and no outside support are
among the hallmarks of the paranoia-induced military stupidity that led to the sound defeat of the Louisiana National
Guardsmen by the inferiorly equipped natives. If any of the fake soldiers died, he can only blame it on his low IQ.
While these idiots were searching for I-10, the only question that needs to be asked is this: "Why not go back to where they
came from?" Then again, you can't fix stupid, and they were shooting at everything with blanks! It's even funnier when
the French-speaking Cajun prisoner knew English after all. Anyway, what a great cast. The performances are terrific
with a bunch of memorable characters and an unbelievable ending. Andrew Laszlo's cinematography of the Louisiana Bayou
is the clincher to create the Deliverance-like atmosphere.
All in all, Southern Comfort is a brilliantly made movie of how a clusterfuck can happen.