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Southern Comfort (1981)

Director:
Walter Hill
COUNTRY
United States
Genre
Crime/Thriller
NORWEGIAN TITLE
USA

RUNNING TIME
105 minutes

Producer:
David Giler
Screenwriter:
Michael Kane
Walter Hill
David Giler


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
PFC Spencer Keith Carradine
Corporal Charles Hardin Powers Boothe ½
Corporal Lonnie Reece Fred Ward ½
PFC Simms Franklyn Seales ½
Private Tyrone Cribbs T. K. Carter -
Private Stuckey Lewis Smith -
Sergeant Casper Les Lannom
Staff Sergeant Crawford Poole Peter Coyote -
Corporal "Coach" Bowden Carlos Brown
Cajun Trapper Brion James

 

Review

Walter Hill (The Driver, The Warriors, 48 Hrs.) wrote and directed this obvious nod to Deliverance about a squad from the National Guard who get lost in a bayou area in Louisiana and end up being hunted by a group of local Cajun people. The film has nerve and tension, mainly thanks to Hill's fine tempo and spacing in the film's otherwise indistinguishable locations, which are all about cypress trees and swamps. The characters which make up the squad are all somewhat underdeveloped and therefore appear erratic, but none of them are without potential. And thanks to the two leads Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe (respectively mimicking Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds' characters, if you like), we get an increasingly more human touch as the film progresses. Unlike many movies in this and similar subgenres, Southern Comfort peaks during its final 20 minutes, most notably with a brilliant segment in which Hill expertly intercuts a Cajun pig roast party with the finale of the aforementioned hunt.

Copyright © 22.08.2020 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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