How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 23 November 2012
This a movie review of SOUTHERN COMFORT. |
“I’m not the volunteering type,” Hardin
Walter Hill made, between 1978 and 1981, three thriller classics: THE DRIVER, THE WARRIORS and SOUTHERN COMFORT. Not many directors have a run like that. Set in 1973 during a training exercise in the Bayou, second squad of the Louisiana National Guard have 38 hours to reach their rendezvous point. Immediately political nature rears its head – Keith Carradine’s Spencer stating drolly that their purpose, when not tramping through “the great primordial swamp”, is to beat up college kids and tear gas African Americans. He states this to newbie Hardin (Powers Boothe). These two are the only bright sparks in a militia group made up of the less than sharp, the crazy and sociopathic.
Looking at this ragtag band of part-timers, you know that this over-night recon mission is going to go wrong. With an inaccurate map, the leader of the squad, Poole (Peter Coyote) agrees to temporarily appropriate, sans permission, some canoes. Rubbing salt in the wounds, the motley crew antagonise the local Cajun owners further by firing blanks at them. Thinking they’re being genuinely attacked, the swamp inhabitants kill Poole, leaving the belligerent group leaderless. What then unfurls is a lean, exciting hunt/chase flick.
Walter Hill made, between 1978 and 1981, three thriller classics: THE DRIVER, THE WARRIORS and SOUTHERN COMFORT. Not many directors have a run like that. Set in 1973 during a training exercise in the Bayou, second squad of the Louisiana National Guard have 38 hours to reach their rendezvous point. Immediately political nature rears its head – Keith Carradine’s Spencer stating drolly that their purpose, when not tramping through “the great primordial swamp”, is to beat up college kids and tear gas African Americans. He states this to newbie Hardin (Powers Boothe). These two are the only bright sparks in a militia group made up of the less than sharp, the crazy and sociopathic.
Looking at this ragtag band of part-timers, you know that this over-night recon mission is going to go wrong. With an inaccurate map, the leader of the squad, Poole (Peter Coyote) agrees to temporarily appropriate, sans permission, some canoes. Rubbing salt in the wounds, the motley crew antagonise the local Cajun owners further by firing blanks at them. Thinking they’re being genuinely attacked, the swamp inhabitants kill Poole, leaving the belligerent group leaderless. What then unfurls is a lean, exciting hunt/chase flick.
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The militia, limited in ammo and at loggerheads strategy-wise, are at war. The indigenous population have the upper hand, knowing how to utilise the terrain. The similarity with ALIENS’ deoxyribonucleic acid is remarkable – both a Vietnam conflict allegory about rudderless ‘grunts’ overwhelmed by guerrilla warfare. Who doesn’t love a symbolic action fest?
And like James Cameron’s kinetic masterpiece, and DIE HARD, each supporting character is given a personality – and here their lack of pleasantness and social graces is all the more refreshing. Friction and tension emanates and pulsates, not just from the group’s faceless predators, but also from the mutual resentment and panic among the soldiers. Funnily enough, if you remove people getting shot in slow-mo, the writers have fashioned a theatrical ensemble that may well be home on the stage. Perhaps Jason Schwartzman’s Max Fischer should have recreated SOUTHERN COMFORT in RUSHMORE rather than his PLATOON/APOCALYPSE NOW pastiche.
The filmmakers play the audience expertly in terms of letting us relax and then ramping up the mayhem and set-pieces. SOUTHERN COMFORT is up there with FIRST BLOOD and ESSENTIAL KILLING. Will you take a sip of the namesake liqueur again and not look over your shoulder?