By the time Southern Comfort, his fifth feature as director, left theaters as both a critical and box office failure in 1981, Walter Hill had made more flops than hits. He wouldn’t break out as an A-List Hollywood filmmaker until the blockbuster 48 Hrs. the following year. However, like many of Hill’s early movies, this one found an appreciative audience over time, especially on home video, and its legacy would be vindicated in the long run.
During its release, Southern Comfort was largely viewed as an inferior knockoff of John Boorman’s Oscar-nominated smash Deliverance, and another attempt to cash-in on the wave of “hicksploitation” or “rednecksploitation” movies that followed through most of the 1970s. In retrospect, the film is actually very much of a piece with most of Hill’s output. It’s a raw and unpretentious thriller that knows exactly what it’s trying to do and delivers on those promises with tight and efficient execution.
| Title: | Southern Comfort |
| Year of Release: | 1981 |
| Director: | Walter Hill |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray Amazon Prime Video AMC+ Hoopla Kanopy Roku Channel Shudder |
Pointedly set in 1973, the story follows a squad of soldiers in the Louisiana National Guard, most of whom probably signed up in the first place to avoid being drafted into the Army and shipped off to Vietnam. Hardin (Powers Boothe) just transferred in from Texas and doesn’t care much for either state, nor for the job. Reece (Fred Ward) is a bit of a hothead, while Spencer (Keith Carradine) is a slacker who doesn’t take any of this military stuff seriously and just wants to have a good time with his buddies. The sergeant in charge, Poole (Peter Coyote), does his best to maintain some order and professionalism among this rabble, but is doomed to failure.
Assigned to training maneuvers, the men find themselves trudging through the bayou, carrying a lot of equipment and weapons loaded almost entirely with blanks. All they really need to do is trek from one location to another overnight and get back to base in time for weekend R&R, for which Spencer has lined up some disreputable entertainment awaiting them. Unfortunately, an inaccurate or outdated map leads them astray, with their route blocked by an unexpected lake. Rather than reverse course and take a long hike around it, the whiniest and laziest members of the unit argue in favor of stealing some canoes they come across, left behind by local fur trappers. The exhausted Poole, regrettably, caves to their wishes. This proves to be a disastrous mistake, fatally compounded when an idiot named Stuckey (Lewis Smith) thinks it will be hilarious to fire off blanks in the direction of the canoes’ rightful owners.
That incident sets off a chain of events in which the small team of ill-prepared National Guardsmen find themselves hunted and picked off by vengeful Cajuns who know the terrain far better than they do. With only a small handful of real bullets to share, the quickly dwindling survivors are split between those desperately trying to get the hell out of the swamp, and those (led by Reece) who believe they can get some payback before they go.
Aside from a single, one-armed poacher (Brion James from Blade Runner) who may or may not be an innocent bystander in this mess, the Cajun antagonists are a faceless enemy seen only from a distance – and, truth be told, have a legitimate grievance against the interlopers stealing their property and threatening their lives. The nominal heroes bring their fate upon themselves through their own actions, and most of their failures are exacerbated by the division in their ranks.
Despite that, primary leads Hardin and Spencer are likeable and sympathetic. They and Reece are all played by charismatic actors who’d go on to bigger careers, deservedly so.
Unlike Deliverance, which openly suggested deeper layers to its story and themes, Southern Comfort is a more straightforward thriller and action movie. Among other possible interpretations, Walter Hill has resisted attempts to read it as a Vietnam allegory, in which arrogant (mostly white) Americans charge into conflict against an enemy they don’t understand on terrain where they’re clearly outmatched. Nevertheless, the movie is smarter than it might appear at first, or than critics of the day gave it credit for.
The film is also scripted and directed in Hill’s signature lean, economical, no-bullshit style, which I’ve come to appreciate more than ever in these times where modern cinema, across nearly every genre from populist popcorn fluff to elevated artistic awards bait, is almost entirely bullshit. We could use more movies today that tell you up-front what they’re going to do, and then proceed to do exactly that, as well as it can be done.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Southern Comfort was first released on Blu-ray by Shout! Factory back in 2014. A decade later, Vinegar Syndrome picked up the rights for a Blu-ray reissue, as well as an upgrade to 4K Ultra HD, in early 2024. The 4K version came in the choice of either a regular keepcase or a Limited Edition in fancier packaging. As much as I like the film, I didn’t feel the need to pay for an overpriced box. I waited for the label’s annual Black Friday sale and picked up the standard edition.
The two-disc set includes the movie on both Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray. To my surprise, my copy was also packaged with a booklet featuring an essay by university professor and author Brian Brems. (Vinegar Syndrome usually reserves booklets only for its Limited Editions.) Be warned that the essay contains extensive spoilers for the movie’s plot, a few factual errors that probably should have been caught by an editor, and is generally the kind of pretentious analysis I’m sure Walter Hill hates.
Southern Comfort was produced on a modest budget and filmed under difficult circumstances on location in a real swamp. Unsurprisingly, its photography is very… I think the most appropriate word would be “naturalistic.” In other words, the 1.85:1 image is extremely grainy. Director Walter Hill and cinematographer Andrew Laszlo also made a conscious decision to shoot in a palette of mostly drab greens and flat browns, to mimic photographs and news footage from the Korean and Vietnam wars. All of this is appropriate for the material and enhances the mood.
Considering those limitations, the 4K transfer is quite impressively sharp. I feel like every micron of detail on the camera negative is visible on screen with no filtering or manipulation. The downside to this is that the grain is resolved in stark clarity and can be a little distracting, especially on the 4K disc. In my quick comparisons, the accompanying Blu-ray doesn’t seem to lose much for picture detail, but the grain may feel less oppressive. Regardless, the 4K version is slightly more vivid, and the HDR (while subtle) adds a small touch of depth.
I’ve noted before in other reviews that Vinegar Syndrome often pushes color saturation in its HDR grading. That seems to be the case here as well, most notable in skin tones that look more flushed on the 4K disc than the Blu-ray. Personally, I wasn’t bothered by this. The 4K disc’s colors are pleasing on the whole.
The film’s mono soundtrack is encoded in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 format. Dialogue is clear and Ry Cooder’s musical score has excellent fidelity. Animal and ambient sounds are also startlingly crisp and loud, which greatly heightens the sense of tension. However, gunshots and the movie’s one big explosion are weak, with limited range. I expect that’s a limitation of the original sound recording or mixing.
In addition to the booklet essay, both discs in the set offer an engaging and informative audio commentary by film critic Walter Chaw. Other supplements are found on the Blu-ray. These include recent interviews with director Walter Hill (who proclaims, “You should never believe interviews with directors”), the movie’s editors, its costume designer, and film historian Wayne Byrne (author of a book about Walter Hill). A half-hour archival featurette is carried over from an older home video edition. A brief still gallery and a trailer then round out the extras.
Related
- Walter Hill (director)
- Powers Boothe
- Peter Coyote
- Fred Ward
Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
The Video File Blog 
‘I waited for the label’s annual Black Friday sale and picked up the standard edition.’
Luckily, it wasn’t sold out by then!
‘Powers Boothe’ remains one of the best birth names ever. I remember you highlighted the fact that it wasn’t a stage name in your Bonus View obituary of the actor.
LikeLike