Southern Comfort (1981)

More than merely Deliverance in the Louisiana bayou, Walter Hill's taut little tale of weekend-warrior National Guardsmen on swamp exercises reverberates with echoes of Vietnam. Powers Booth brings a hard pragmatism to the "new guy" in the unit, a Texas transplant less than thrilled with his new group. "They're just Louisiana versions of the same rednecks I served with in El Paso," he tells the levelheaded Keith Carradine.

The barely functional unit of city boys and macho rednecks invades the environs of the local Cajun trappers and poachers, "borrowing" the locals' boats and sending bursts of blank rounds over their heads in a show of contempt. Before they know it the dysfunctional strangers in a strange land are on the losing end of a guerrilla war. The swamp rats kill their commanding officer (Peter Coyote) and terrorize the bickering bunch as they flee blindly through the jungle without a map, a compass, or a leader to speak of.

Hill directs with a clean simplicity, creating tension as much from the primal landscape and the Cajuns' unsettling reign of terror as from the dynamics of a platoon of battle virgins tearing itself apart from rage and fear. Ry Cooder's eerie and haunting score and the primal, claustrophobic landscape only intensifies the paranoia as the city boys splinter with infighting (sparked by a bullying Fred Ward), blunder through booby traps and ambushes, and finally turn just as savage as their pursuers in their drive to survive. --Sean Axmaker Amazon.com

Tense and atmospheric

A film that was clearly inspired by Deliverance, but that quite easily merits viewing in its own right. If you replace adventurers with National Guardsmen you do have almost the same film. However don't let that put you off because this is very well done and probably has more of a brooding sense of menace to it than Deliverance does. The cast are are all good and director Walter Hill perhaps peaked with this film.

The story is slight, but effective, some National Guardsmen upset the locals whilst out on an exercise. The locals aren't happy and seek to punish the soldiers in various horrible ways. When you see this unfold you will begin to see that maybe this film was an influence on the first Rambo film and even perhaps Predator.

Again in another parallel to Deliverance this has a marvellous soundtrack, written and performed by Ry Cooder. Its mostly played on guitar, bottle-neck style, and its adds another dimension to the film.

So overall a tense, highly entertaining film that holds up to repeated viewings. September 11, 2008

Southern Comfort equals tremendous waste of time

The only redeeming element of SOUTHERN COMFORT is the equipment the Guardsmen are wearing/carrying, it's the real thing, right down to the patches on the uniforms. As for the rest of this film, it was a waste of electricity.

The acting is awful, there is no plot, the dialog between the actors is sophomoric. The Louisiana Army National Guard should be offended by the way their soldiers were portrayed in this film. Two of the actors, Powers Boothe and Fred Ward are former Air Force guys.

What a disappointment. Don't waste your time. August 18, 2008

Forgotten Thriller

Having briefly lived in the area where this film was made and having seen the Cajun village where some of the movie was filmed made the film more thrilling. The acting was good and the film moved along well. Having been out in the bayou country myself made the behavior of the actors more natural. The music in the movie, the food, the terrain, all part of the Louisiana experience. A good film, events that "could have happened," making it easy to remain interested in the movie until the end. May 18, 2008

SOUTHERN COMFORT ON THE ROCKS WITH A TWIST!

I had not seen this film in many years until it popped up on one of my HD channels. The movie owes a lot to 'Deliverence' and Stallone borrowed plenty for his first installment in the 'Rambo' series 'First Blood' from this film. It's interesting to see many well known actors now in an early role in this film too. It's funny that some of these guys seem to always end up in military gear and a lot of these guys worked in 'Platoon' a few years later. With a great cast, setting and premise this is an easy film to watch, however the action seemed sparce for this type of film. It's still a good movie with a very good cast. Worth checking out for sure. March 16, 2008

Yankee Doodle Dandy

From memory this film had more of an impression on me when I watched it on VHS some 20 years ago. A good cast with some atempt at decent "One Liners". The Director's attempts with portraying the "National Guard" in such a bad light as "Auxilary" borders on overkill. However there is some nice realisim at the conclusion of the film that most who have come back to civilisation from "The Bush" could attest to.
I'll Keep it. February 9, 2008

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