Southern Comfort

One of the best films of all time!

This film came out just as I was finishing a six-year stint with the Louisiana National Guard, so I eagerly went to see it soon after its release. I enjoyed it so much then that I bought a copy on DVD when reminded of it after I bought "Deliverance".Though there are surface similarities, Southern Comfort is not Deliverance Louisiana-style, though it may have attracted much the same viewers.I won't rehash the story to a great extent, but I want to point out a few errors in the film before singing its hosannahs. First of all, if the Guard unit started its exercise in the Catahoula swamp and was supposed to pass through the Great Dismal Swamp (they called it the Great Primordial Swamp in the film) to a rendezvous with another unit, there would have been precious few Cajuns as those swamps are north of the Red River. Most Cajuns live south of that river and west of the Mississippi. Secondly, the interstate which "Casper" kept referring to would have been Interstate 20, 100 miles to the north and they'd have crossed many other roads before that. The type of swamp the unit was in would be far more likely south of Interstate 10, 100 miles to the south of where the movie placed them. Finally, there would probably have been at least a couple of the troops who could speak Cajun French. My unit, based at Pineville LA, had a good mix of North Louisiana "rednecks" as Cajuns referred to them and South Louisiana "coon-asses" as the Cajuns called themselves. A lot of the Cajun guys were fluent in Cajun French. As for the troopers themselves, we did have one guy in our unit reminiscent of the wild-eyed punk in the film who got the real trouble started by firing blanks at the Cajun trappers, but beyond that they were a decent bunch of men and women.With that straightened out, lets talk about the movie. This is a great story about men under stress, how they interact and how they respond to fear. Some keep their heads, some snivel and whine, while others go berserk. You have prototypes of all three in this film. Texas Guard transferee Powers Boothe is the most level-headed of the group, you somehow know that he is going to make it.The Cajuns themselves are shown as pretty one-dimensional characters until the end, but that's because these particular Cajuns live life in the shadows and are involved in many activities of questionable legality. Only at the end, when Boothe and Carradine seemingly have saved themselves and find themselves in the middle of a real Mardi Gras, is the fun-loving devil may care side of the Cajun soul bared.That one-armed Cajun trapper who was captured and tortured by the guardsmen spared Boothe and Carradine near the end and gave them directions out of the swamp, but probably only because Boothe had saved him from further torture and he recognised that both guardsmen were essentially decent men. But, as the trapper warns them, the others are not as nice as he is.Apart from the unlikely storyline itself, you will be transfixed by this Southern-Fried Film Noir. You have people from the outside world pitted against an insular and seemingly peculiar minority. You have the unrelenting gloom of the setting, whether it be in the swamp and all its clues of impending doom, or at the bayou-side Mardi Gras with all sinister symbolism that keeps up the suspense and the viewer on edge. The dark and gloomy atmosphere is sustained by the brooding and mysterious soundtrack by Ry Cooder.I heartily recommend Southern Comfort to anyone who enjoys dark action films, to those for whom the swamps of Louisiana stir a mixture of curiosity and dread, and for anyone who has not been to backwoods Louisiana who might like to see what a real Cajun party sans tourists may be like.

This seldom-mentioned little film from the early eighties is in actuality a pretty darned good flick. Director Walter Hill delivers a story with impact, beautiful visuals, and enough of a message about the darkness of man to please anyone.The basic plot is that a group of National Guardsmen, out on maneuvers, run afoul of local Cajun hunter/trappers deep in the Louisiana swamps...but the reason they run afoul is their own creation. You see, these civilian-soldiers lean HEAVILY to the "civilian" side of that coin; there's very little discipline, and they cut all kinds of corners to hurry to their destination (you see, there's prostitutes allegedly waiting at the end of the line). So our protagonists, while some rise above, are not really the kind of people we'd want to hang out and barbecue with.The group, due largely to their own ineptitude, faced with a local population who is familar with their terrain and saavy in their tactics, is slowly decimated by attrition by the phantom-like backwoods people. Here is where the movie shines: The misty, mossy swamp is a character unto itself; claustrophobia in the wide-open wilderness, and Hill shoots this very well.The performances range from excellent (Powers Boothe, Fred Ward) to very good (pretty much the rest of the cast). You get some pretty graphic violence, but nothing that will put you off your popcorn (well, except maybe one scene, which I'll get to in a minute). Top it off with a haunting yet eerily appropriate score from Ry Cooder (although a 5.1 remaster would have been nice, you can't have it all, I s'pose), and your result is a movie that delivers a powerful message but in an entertaining way.It's easy to draw a line from this movie to be a metaphor for the war in Vietnam (largely green troops facing a cunning indigenous foe), and the often-made comparison to "Deliverance" is also understood, but I think even without such shoulders to stand on the film is a nice piece of work, and can be enjoyed by anyone, whether you're looking for allegorical lessons or not.Now, the one thing that's a little extreme: I kind of railed against "Cannibal Holocaust" for it's use of actual animal slaughter, and this film does show, in lurid detail, the killing and skinning of wild boar. I grew up in the south; I've seen all of this before, and I realize that in the context of this film the boar were honestly and actually being slaughtered for food, but I still feel it was a bit much. I understand the director's desire to use the scene for dramatic reasons, but it could have been done with special effects. The argument I suppose could be made that the Cajun extras were doing it anyway, why waste time and money for an effects shot when you have the real thing right here? But if I'm gonna gripe about it in one movie, I gotta be fair...so if you're squeamish or are thinking about letting your kids watch it, be advised.Overall, a very good, entertaining film. If you liked "Deliverance", or are a fan of the "man against insurmountable odds" kind of flick, you should give this one a watch.

This is a review of the 2019 Region B2 Blu-ray from Second Sight Films. Regarding comments in other reviews about the quality of this disc, we found the picture good but not as sharp as one might expect on Blu-ray, and the sound OK but not brilliant. This is not a cheap product, so one might expect better.Walter Hill is a California-born screen-writer, director and producer with a long list of films to his credit, largely high-octane Westerns and action movies, such as ‘The Long Riders’(1980) and ‘Extreme Prejudice’(1987). With David Giler, he founded Brandywine Productions, which bought the option on ‘Alien’(1979); Hill and Giler were heavily involved in the screenplays and production of the first 4 Alien films. In 1981, they asked writer Michael Kane to produce a 1st draft of a ‘survival story’ that would be cheap to make, which they then re-wrote; Giler produced, and Hill directed. They chose to make it in Louisiana, which Hill was familiar with.‘Southern Comfort’ (the title was used under an agreement with the drinks manufacturer) is, like the earlier and more famous John Boorman film ‘Deliverance’, a horror-adventure set in the backwoods of rural America. Both are predicated on the collision of urban Americans (ostensibly civilised) arriving in unfamiliar and hostile terrain, with rural back-woodsmen. In fact, this film is an unmistakable allegory relating to the US military’s disastrous mismatch of a war in South East Asia. The film pits a group of 9 Louisiana National Guardsmen, out in the Bayou on exercise, against a shadowy group of local Cajun hunters. For Cajuns, read the Vietcong, shadowy resistance fighters in the jungles and villages of Vietnam.The movie was filmed during December around Caddo Lake, a vast area of wetland on the Texas-Louisiana border. It produces one of the most miserably monochrome vistas of any film I can recall. The characters spend their entire time wet and muddy, and half of it walking or wading in murky water. It must have been a beast to film, for both the actors and the crew.The sheer brutal physicality of the landscape sets the scene admirably for the action. The choreography ~ now you see it, now you don’t ~ is excellent. The suspense is fed by superbly atmospheric music from the musician and songwriter Ry Cooder. And the ensemble cast, many then unknown, enter into the spirit of the action with gusto. Only Keith Carradine was previously well-known, in ‘Nashville’(1975) and ‘The Long Riders’. He and Powers Boothe (who had a distinguished film and TV career, particularly in series such as ‘Deadwood’, ’24’ and ‘Nashville’) are good.This is a nicely creepy film, with a chilly, disturbing feel. It should be watched with a large mug of Hot Chocolate to hand!

On the surface, Walter Hill's Southern Comfort is your standard survival/war movie, a gormless platoon of soldiers getting lost in territory and then picked off one by one by a wily foe.Scratch away, and Southern Comfort becomes more than your usual, standard action fare. This is Hill's take on the Vietnam war, but this time Americans are confronting fellow Americans, with the Cajun woodsmen standing in for the North Vietnamese, the hapless platoon's technical superiority no match for the Cajun's woodcraft.As with any good war film, the true heart lies away from the action scenes, the interplay between the platoon members switches from cosy familiarity to weariness, to hostility, as the fight for survival becomes more pronounced, Hill cleverly subverting the action genre tropes, as the pillars of American society crumble, and the odd balls rise to the occasion.The cinematography is also worth noting - the great primordial swamp of Louisiana never looking more dismal...or green.With a great Ry Cooder soundtrack adding some icing to the cake, Southern Comfort is Hill's masterpiece, the high watermark of a distinguished career.

Average picture quality and the original cinema release was more widescreen if I remember correctly. The soundtrack is poor and is barely stereo. The moody atmosphere created by Ry Cooder's guitar playing and sound effects are lost due to the lack of a 5.1 soundtrack. Second Sight Films should go back to the drawing board and produce a decent transfer to Blu Ray because this cult film by Walter Hill deserves it.

Southern Comfort (1981) is an American action/thriller film directed by Walter Hill and written by Michael Kane, and Hill and his longtime collaborator David Giler. It stars Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, T. K. Carter, Franklyn Seales, and Peter Coyote. The film, set in 1973, features a Louisiana Army National Guard squad of nine on weekend maneuvers in rural bayou country as they antagonize some local Cajun people and become hunted.Members of an undisciplined patrol of Louisiana National Guardsmen are meeting in the bayou swamps for weekend manoeuvres. Corporal Hardin (Powers Boothe), a cynical transfer from the Texas National Guard, is disgusted with the behaviour and arrogance of his new squad. A married man, he wants no part of a date with prostitutes that Private Spencer (Keith Carradine) has waiting for the men. Nevertheless, he is befriended by the amiable Spencer, the two seeming to agree that they are the only level-headed soldiers in the squad.This film starred the following actors as their respective characters: Keith Carradine as Pvt. Spencer; Powers Boothe as Cpl. Hardin; Fred Ward as Cpl. Reece; Franklyn Seales as Pvt. Simms; T. K. Carter as Pvt. Cribbs; Lewis Smith as Pvt. Stuckey; Les Lannom as Sgt. Casper; Peter Coyote as Staff Sgt. Poole; Alan Autry as Cpl. "Coach" Bowden (billed as Carlos Brown); Brion James as Cajun trapper; Sonny Landham as hunter; Dewey Balfa, traditional musician, in a cameo role as a Cajun singer and fiddle player; Marc Savoy, traditional musician, in a cameo role as a Cajun accordion player; Frank Savoy, traditional musician, in a cameo role as a Cajun singer and triangle player.I never saw Southern Comfort before getting it on DVD (like Deliverance, I got this film as a Christmas present for my dad after he heard from a colleague at work that the film was supposed to be very good, and I tell you something, he's right about that). Southern Comfort is a very entertaining film which has a similar plot to the classic 1972 film Deliverance as both of these films see soldiers fighting for survival. Very highly recommended.

Walter Hill has been responsible for some sublime movie-making such as 48 Hours, The Warriors, the cruelly ignored Crossroads, and this...his finest hour. Far superior to the often compared Deliverance, Powers Booth and Keith Carradine turn in sterling performances as National Guardsmen lost in deep Louisiana trying to fight their way to safety from local backwoodsmen.The Ry Cooder soundtrack simply adds to the menace as the squadron are picked off one by one in the unforgiving Southern swamps. A masterpiece which has stood the test of time, as suspenseful as the first time I saw it 35 years ago. See it, just see it.