Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fantastic!

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Some films you may hear about and they slip your mind for years--mainly because hardly anyone ever sings its praises. Southern Comfort is a prime example. The cast is good, especially the two leads, but it amounts to a rehash of Deliverance with its "fear the Southern white man" message.The Guardsmen spend a great deal of time splashing through the bayou and complaining or going nuts or flashing their redneck credentials. Maybe in 1981 it was edgy, but there is something juvenile about it now. The whiny National Guardsmen were bad enough, but then when the filmmakers were pressed to build tension or perhaps to disgust some members of the audience, they throw in a couple of real animal deaths-two caged pigs shot on screen. Despite what some callous psycho said about it being a refreshing rejection of "Peta freaks," many people of all backgrounds and intellectual capacity would find the exploitation of real death for crass entertainment to be at the very least, in bad taste.If the message of the film is any commentary on a clash between civilization and the rustic, the filmmakers, ironically enough, manage to merge the two by achieving a kind of technological barbarism all their own. If I want a lesson in Southern Comfort, maybe I will read Mark Twain, who said: Man is the only animal who blushes. Or needs to.

Brilliantly shot war movie involving a squad of reservists on a training exercise expecting anything but real warfare. Works in so many ways, has visual power, great action, is a tense thriller as the squad is picked off one by one, is a decent low art picture because of the great setting, the foreign feel of it, the Vietnam angle, great photography, incredible atmosphere it creates and not least the stunning music score. Wildly watchable and memorable film.The simple plot line with stupid characters doing stupid things as the unbelievable catalyst for events is questionable as ever and the acting so-so overall but Boothe puts in one of the best 'no crap' performances you'll see, and what an underused actor he was. And it has clever and inventive devices such as the use of blanks by soldiers against the live ammo of swamp dwelling hillbillies, resulting in a fantastically orchestrated action finale as the two remaining reservists have to rely on pure soldiery to survive. It's a belter!

In 1973, a regiment of the Louisiana National Guard travel out to the remote bayou for a routine training mission. The men, including Spencer (Carradine), Hardin (Boothe), Reece (Ward), Poole (Coyote), and Cribbs (Carter) have differing attitudes towards life and their situation. It all seems simple enough, but when they accidentally draw the ire of some local Cajun folk, the crafty Cajuns start killing them off one by one as punishment for their perceived incursion into their territory. Not to mention their capture of a local man, simply known as Trapper (James). Now trying to survive with limited resources in a harsh and unfamiliar environment, our National Guardsmen literally have to fight their own war at home. Who will die, who will survive, and who will live to find out the true meaning of SOUTHERN COMFORT? Only the genius of the great Walter Hill could take elements of the Wilderness Horror subgenre, the war movie, the Western, the suspense thriller, and the Asian-style "Heroic Bloodshed" film, and tie it all together with allegorical and metaphorical themes and undercurrents, all the while on the surface allowing it to appear to be a Deliverance/Most Dangerous Game-style survival outing. Strictly speaking, this isn't a straight-up action movie, though it certainly has those elements, but Hill's style, especially with this movie, was so imitated and duplicated in the years following this, we just had to include it here for being the benchmark that it is. Just watch any Cirio Santiago-directed jungle slog or any Italian war film shot in the Philippines (i.e. Eye of the Eagle III or Dogtags, respectively) and you'll see what we mean. The influence of Southern Comfort reverberated throughout the video store era of the 80's/early 90's and beyond, and it's easy to see why. There's a certain disturbing quality to it, especially in the final third. And as much as we enjoyed Hunter's Blood (1986), that film can't really compete with the staying power of Southern Comfort, because there's so much more depth here, despite the surface similarities. Or perhaps it's the presence of Joey Travolta. One or the other.The cast is killer, the Louisiana locations are both picturesque and unsettling (captured gorgeously by cinematographer Andrew Laszlo), and the Ry Cooder score is the icing on the cake. The cumulative effect of the clever writing, brilliant direction, the great cast, strange yet pretty locations and the top-notch score is powerfully effective. You can't ask for much more. If we have one minor quibble, it's that the 105-minute running time might have been able to be trimmed down a tad. But everything else is in the "win" column for this fine film.In high school English class, we learned about the four main drivers of narrative conflict. These are: Man against man, man against society, man against nature and man against self. Southern Comfort is one of the few movies that articulately expresses ALL of the four conflicts. But one of the other themes - and a constant in the work of Walter Hill - particularly stood out: the nature of masculinity. What does it mean to be "a man"? Is there a type of man that is "best"? One that is more effective? Does losing at a certain conflict make you "less of a man"? All these questions and many more are lurking just beneath the surface.Hill also shows that not all the Vietnam-era action happened in Vietnam. This provides a point of difference that is worth noting. There's some un-PC dialogue we all love and enjoy, and much like The Thing (1982), there are almost no women in the entire movie. The Shout Factory DVD/Blu-Ray combo is the package to buy - the movie looks brilliant and there is an insightful documentary included as well.Southern Comfort is much more than a "man's movie" - it cleverly explores themes that are damn near primordial in mankind. But it never loses its power to entertain, which is what good storytelling is all about. We strongly recommend it.

it's an artistic nam movie with fine camera work. About every scene is some portrait of 'soldiers at war' in that south delta /asia/ ; it's louisiana 1973 ; french and southern. Fine focal depth and photography. The script is well edited too, expectations decisions etc words chosen /all movie long/; not much movie time wasted telling the story ; what 'america went through down there' the chaotic tet-apocalypse' included. that's the atmosphere of the movie, it's not exactly pleasant, but I consider you mature enough to handle it right to evaluate it towards 'good', since it's a movie. A lot of male will recognize their friends and related styles easily. Eh........yes, which contributes to the portrait. I think it's artistic /cinema artistic/ for the method and tec used /grime too everything/text/ in louisiana USA. Outstanding is the final scene, in reference to the starting scene, with the huey and the car wearing the star / nr 22877. so very many etcetc frederick barendse 3-5-14 Might be underestimated a nam movie, but I'm not really informed about figures and sales, certainly not nowadays. Southern comfort is a very good movie. (I would not have chosen the drink name, maybe 'southern game' I don't know. fb