Sans retour

I just saw this film for the first time recently and I keep watching it over and over before I have to return it. I wasn't expecting such a great film. I agree with the Vietnam metaphor, but it was lighter fare being set in the Louisiana Bayou. There was never a dull moment and there was just the right amount of humor between the tension. The cast was great, most of the acting was very believable. It was surely one of Powers Boothe's best performances. One reason I enjoy it so much is because there isn't a lot of high-tech special effects. The bear-traps are quite effective. Also in the very tense last 20 minutes, there's blood & guts and it's real blood & guts. I was very creeped out when Hardin looks out a window and sees hangmen nooses being strung up. I'm affected every time. He can say more with his eyes than most people can with their mouth. His brooding intensity playing off of Carradine's lightness was perfect. Fred Ward was great too. I have not one bad thing to say about this movie and it's incorrect to say it is anti-Cajun. It's message was respect the natives. Sometimes we don't do that. I lived near quite a few National Guardsmen in Oregon, and, yes, the movie was believable in relation to them.

Now this is a atmospheric survival action film and Walter Hill at his peak. Love it! It's so simple (although streaming through it is a biting allegory about the Vietnam War), but nonetheless exhilarating, tense and raw film-making. Sure the acting and dialogues aren't master-class, but however they're commendably pulled off. In which case Powers Boothe (whose booming voice takes charge) and Keith Carradine (excellently pitched as the guy of reasoning) are terrific leads, and the support Fred Ward (a memorably hot-head and tooting turn), T.K Carter, Lewis Smith, Franklyn Seales, Peter Coyote and Brion James are also quite compelling. Tough, authentic and a real sense of claustrophobic tension stems from the actor's rapport and cynical script. This blends well with the brutal bloody violence (like the barnstorming climax with the powerful freeze frame closing) and the dank, devouring swamp terrain that ultimately swallows them up. But where I think it's at its most effective is during the interludes of Ry Cooder's fascinatingly folksy music score. Each time it creeps in, it demonstrates the right illustrations to the striking visuals and harrowing moods. Cooder's handling is multi-layered and truly echoing. From a relaxing southern flavour, to a haunting stillness and a punishing sting. It's cohesively perfect in it's random shifts. Hill's bravura direction holds up tautly, as the well-used slow motion is suitably done and the highly measured suspense piercingly infused. I liked how the hunters are kept as void-like background figures, because towards the end it makes the whole paranoid feeling and unease thrillingly justified.

It is one of my personal favorite best war movies of all time and favorite from been a hunted to become a hunter. I love, love this movie to death. I love the setting that it was filmed in the forest and in the swamps. The soldiers got lost and are now hunted from Cajuns. Because they stole their canoes and a soldier for a joke fired at them with blank bullets, but Cajuns returned fire and kill on of the soldiers. The other eight soldiers are now hunted on enemy turf, without live animation, compass, and the map they lost they must fight for survival. Walter Hill directed perfectly this film. "The thrill of the hunt is the ultimate drug" - the line is from Hard Target it is still a thrill film an edge on your seat.

This is my childhood movie, I grew up watching it today I still love this movie today and I have purchased the Blu-ray disc and I watch it so many times on VHS tape. I think the acting performance from all the actors was decent. I love the music score by Ry Cooder I think it is very beautiful. What can I say? I love this movie to death I always enjoy watching this movie. I watched in Thursday this movie with my dad and even he enjoyed this movie just like I did. He said he loves this movie just like me.

Squad of nine Louisiana National Guard soldiers are Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales, T. K. Carter, Lewis Smith , Les Lannom, Peter Coyote and Alan Autry and they are believable. Powers Boothe and Franklyn Seales both really died in real life and are sadly no longer with us anymore. I am written this cause I love this movie to death and no one talks about it. Like this movie doesn't exit. I am a huge fan of this film.

I have been an enthusiastic fan of Walter Hill's 1981 film, Southern Comfort, since childhood, and I believe that it is one of the most perfect movies of that decade in terms of its ability to maintain intensity to a nail-biting conclusion. A lot has been written about this film as an allegory for the war in Vietnam, but I prefer simply to take Southern Comfort at face value as a brilliant horror story.

When a squad of nine National Guardsmen antagonize some reclusive Cajuns in the bayous of Louisiana, they find themselves fighting for their lives in drab swamp setting that is presented as a villain in its own right. They are on enemy territory crossing through swamps without any real ammunition, their compass and the map they lost in the swamp alone and tired the hunt is on in this game for survival.

Unlike contemporary survival horror movies where one never gets the impression that the characters are actually outdoors at any point in the film, Southern Comfort is rugged to an extreme, with the actors constantly wading ankle-deep through swamp lands in the middle of winter, since filmmakers quickly determined that the filming location would be too hazardous during the summer season. For most of the film, the Cajun hunters are depicted as terrifyingly wraith like figures that are only seen in split-second glimpses through the trees. This movie has some of the most harrowing death scenes that I have ever witnessed on screen, by way of gunshots to the head, horrific booby traps, and, most notably, an unset ting sequence where a character disappears in quicksand that is subsequently shown in a serene shot as though nothing happened. A beautifully atmospheric Ry Cooder soundtrack works wonders to bring the viewer into the bayou.

Just when the viewer thinks that the most tense moments of Southern Comfort have come to pass, the film ratchets up the unnerving horror with a conclusion that feeds on paranoia in a crowded setting. A few key visuals, namely two rope nooses being thrown over a support beam and a pig slaughter, are strikingly effective in a way that recalls the best of Universal Horror films or German expressionism, while the faces of strangers gets under the skin in a way that recalls movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Through it all, Southern Comfort presents us with memorable characters by way of convincing "lived-in" dialogue and tough guy archetypes that may or may not snap in the face of danger. It's easy to buy the notion that the nine Guardsmen are real people who have known one another for a long time, but simply tolerate one another's company during monthly weekend training exercises. The authenticity of these interactions is the strength that sold the premise to me when I first saw this movie on a cable channel almost 30 years ago.

R.I.P. Franklyn Seales (1952-1990) and Powers Boothe (1948-2017) you are both really missed.

Southern Comfort is a 1981 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.

10/10 Bad Ass Seal Of Approval my favorite childhood movie from Walter Hill of all time a really masterpiece classic they don't make movie like this anymore.

A group of National Guardsmen led by Hardin(Powers Boothe)and Spencer(Keith Carradine)get on the bad side of swamp-dwelling Cajuns while conducting maneuvers in the bayou.Bloodshed ensues.Hardin and Spencer must then go on the run through the Louisiana swamps if they're to survive.This violent and exciting survival thriller owes a lot to John Boorman's fantastic "Deliverance".Walter Hill does a fine job of showing how an area as large as a bayou can be claustrophobic and the ultra-intense finale shows some top-notch editing.The acting is great and the script raises some serious questions about the behaviour of man."Southern Comfort" can also be seen as an allegorical treatment of the Vietnam conflict.8 out of 10.A must-see!

As a Frenchman I've long been fascinated with Cajun culture, surviving against all odds, so when I learned "Southern Comfort" was like "Deliverance" with Cajuns I figured it had to be fun and that I should check it out. I wasn't disappointed.

The plot is pretty simple. A National Guard squad gets stranded in Cajun country swamps, and are victim to attacks from the locals who consider that it's their land, and the film predictably proceeds in having the soldiers killed one at a time while they also destroy each-other because of their increasing paranoia.

The score and cinematography are great, as is the acting. However I must say that ultimately most of the movie with the soldiers stranded in the swamps isn't as intense as it could have been. It's surely entertaining, but pretty basic, and for that only I would have given "Southern Comfort" a 7. However, the last 20 minutes of the movie are absolutely fantastic, elevating the film to something highly satisfying. I don't want to spoil anything, and anyway I probably couldn't accurately describe how superbly cut the climatic ending of "Southern Comfort" is. If most of the film is just above average, the ending makes sitting through it even more worthwhile, as it all builds up to those last scenes.

The theme of the film obviously borrows from the Vietnam war, and the film itself inspired later films. Just a little trivia for you, I actually first learned about "Southern Comfort" from reading about the film "Aliens". "Southern Comfort" producer David Giler convinced the studio to make an "Alien" sequel by making the sequel like "Southern Comfort" in space. And it's true that "Aliens" does have a similar Vietnam war theme.

Anyway, "Southern Comfort" is a good 80s film which truly did remind me of "Deliverance", so if you liked that film, you will like this one too. Recommended.