Southern Comfort

Southern Comfort
by Walter Hill

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DVD Reviews of Southern Comfort

DVD Review: Succeeds despite its prejudices
Summary: 4 Stars

The plot is deceptively simple. Set in the watery recesses of the Louisiana bayous, "Southern Comfort" tells the tale of a squad of National Guardsmen who encounter way more than they imagined after running into a trio of Cajuns during a routine training mission. When the guardsmen realize they are lost in the swamps, they decide to steal some poachers' canoes they find on a riverbank. Big mistake. As the weekend warriors float away, they notice the Cajuns watching them from the shoreline. One of the dunces in the outfit rattles off a burst of blanks from his machine gun as a sort of joke. The Cajuns don't know the gun isn't real, and one of them promptly plants a bullet into the head of the squad leader (Peter Coyote in one of his shortest film roles) from an amazing distance. The soldiers, horribly surprised by such a bloody incident, make it to shore and begin worrying about how to get out of the bayou. The compass, the radio, and the only map went down with the canoes, thus effectively trapping the men behind enemy lines. The Cajuns track the soldiers down and dispatch them with dogs, traps, falling trees, and gunfire. As the squad rapidly dwindles, the only hope is to keep going and find a way out. Hindering the quest for civilization are tensions within the group between two city boys (Powers Boothe and Keith Carradine) and two rednecks (Fred Ward and Lewis Smith).

"Southern Comfort" is an enjoyable film in many respects. The excellent cast takes most of the credit for the success of the film. Powers Boothe-great as always-plays main character Charles Hardin, a soldier who recently transferred into the Louisiana Guard from Texas. He's a city boy who despises rednecks, hates the South, and has a hard time accepting the behavior he sees from some of his squad mates. Keith Carradine plays a Louisiana city boy, Spencer, who befriends Hardin even as he feels pressure from his fellow soldiers to conform. The best performance in the film comes from Fred Ward. Ward plays sinister redneck soldier Lonnie Reece, a man who readily takes to violence in any situation. He's the one who brought along a box of live ammo, who tortures a Cajun captive, and who opposes Hardin. You'll recognize several other actors in the film, including Brion James as a Cajun, Franklyn Seales and T.K. Carter as guardsmen, and Alan Autry as the unstable Corporal "Coach" Bowden. The cast makes the movie, and ultimately saves it considering the overtones of racism and hatred in the script.

The film's prejudice against poor white southerners becomes apparent very quickly. The bad guys in the film are always rural types like Lonnie Reece or the Cajuns. Moreover, the film presents these characters as dangerously unbalanced types prone to fits of irrational violence (Reece's threats with his gun and knife, Bowden's firebombing of the Cajun trapper's home) or bouts of mental instability (Bowden's retreat into insanity). There certainly isn't any sympathy for the Cajuns in any part of the film. "Southern Comfort" presents them as filthy savages barely capable of speaking. Sure, these swamp dwellers started killing the soldiers, but they only did so after the squad stole their boats and one idiot opened up on them with a machine gun full of blanks. In fact, the guy who fired the blanks in jest is of course one of the rural rednecks in the outfit. At the end of the film, Hardin and Spencer end up in a Cajun town out in the boonies. The fear on Hardin's face underscores the fear urban dwellers should always have when confronted with a group of "dumb hicks" out in the sticks. Heck, these folks don't even have a phone! What rural stereotypes! On the other hand, the city boy Hardin-and to a lesser extent Spencer-always come across as saner, more sure of themselves, and knowledgeable. So not only do we see anti-white racism, we also get the old urban-rural sectionalism that has defined the development of the United States since its inception.

I'm still going to give the movie a good grade if for no other reason than its opulent cinematography, the wonderful performances, and that great Cajun music at the end of the film. I just didn't care for the pro-urban, hate the rurals propaganda. As though cities are safer and cleaner! Thanks once again go to MGM for releasing a DVD without any extras. All you get here is a widescreen transfer and a trailer. I recommend "Southern Comfort" wholeheartedly as long as you recognize the film for what it truly is: an intriguing story infused with questionable philosophical beliefs. Enjoy (I think...)!

Description of Southern Comfort