Southern Comfort (1981)

Southern Comfort (1981)- * * *1\2

Directed by: Walter Hill

Starring: Powers Booth, Keith Carradine, Brion James, T.K. Carter, and Fred Ward









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.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett

Also check out a write-up from our buddy, The Video Vacuum!

Yesterday's Target (1996)

Yesterday's Target (1996)-*1\2

Directed by: Barry Samson

Starring: Daniel Baldwin, LeVar Burton, Stacy Haiduk, T.K. Carter, Richard Herd, Trevor Goddard, and Malcolm McDowell










Paul Harper (Baldwin) has telekinesis. Jessica Harper (Haiduk) can see into the future. And Carter (Carter) has flame-throwing abilities. These three unlikely allies are on the run from Winstrom (Burton) and his boss Holden (McDowell). It seems Winstrom also has special powers and is after them. Also they can travel through time and are all in our present day. It’s never made completely clear why any of this is happening. Who will become Yesterday’s Target?

If you look up the phrase “video store shelf-filler” in the dictionary, there just might be a picture of Yesterday’s Target. Also you have a pretty awesome dictionary. It’s an out-and-out sci-fi slog, but the filmmakers might have figured that if they get a good cast and make sure it’s 79 minutes long, viewers could tolerate anything. Well, this movie proves them wrong. The short running time, which we normally approve of (usually for action movies) seems too truncated to support a science fiction film with some complex ideas. It’s choppiness would indicate that there’s plenty left on the cutting room floor.

As for the cast, clearly LeVar Burton was trying to shed his “Reading Rainbow” image by playing the baddie (not entirely convincingly) both here and in his episode of “Deadly Games” on TV at the time. He has an evil hat that makes him look like a sinister Herman Cain. Presumably that’s all you can do to make LeVar look eVil. Malcolm McDowell does almost nothing, although in one scene there is a poster for A Clockwork Orange (1971). You can practically see director Barry Samson snickering to himself about how clever and “meta” he is. Actually, you can imagine him doing that throughout the course of this turkey.  Daniel Baldwin puts forth a modicum of effort, as do Haiduk, Carter and Herd, but you can’t really blame them for not bringing their A-game to this dud. Interestingly, Baldwin calls a character “Sparky”. In Desert Thunder (1999) he calls someone “Slappy”. Is Baldwin ad libbing this stuff? If so, are these the only ad libs he can come up with? Does he call people “Sparky” and “Slappy” in real life? What would you do if Daniel Baldwin called you one of these names? These are the true mysteries of Yesterday’s Target.

Special mention should go to Trevor Goddard, who we are fans of. Even his screen presence can’t save things. Yesterday’s Target is the type of movie that would be played on the Sci-Fi channel before they became “SyFy” and got into the whole phase of movies about dinosharks, dinocrocs, sharktopuses, sharktopiranhas, giraffehippobirds, slothtoadchickens or whatever else these geniuses deem as top-shelf Science Fiction. Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke would surely be proud. But as far as Y'sT, at least there’s no CGI to screw things up even further. Adding to the annoyance is that all the characters are continually arguing, and there’s little-to-no character development, so you really don’t care about their plight.

Yesterday’s Target is pretty darn bad. Despite the cast, you’ll want to avoid this one.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

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NOTE: On 12\12\12 none other than Daniel Baldwin himself tweeted us about our posting of Yesterday's Target. His exact tweet was: @DanielBaldwin: "Glad you liked it!!!! LOL"