Southern Comfort – Blu-ray Review

6th Dec 2012

From the dusty vaults of slightly forgotten about films of yesteryear, comes Walter Hill’s ironically titled, tense 1981 survival piece; Southern Comfort, spruced up for the first time, and ready for 21st century Hi-Def consumption.

For those who may not have seen the movie before, it is the tale of a small group of National Guardsmen; out on weekend manoeuvres in the Louisiana swamps. These men are armed with nothing but blank rounds, fragile dispositions, and bad attitudes. Finding themselves lost deep in the swamps, they inadvertently anger a small bunch of quite unbelievably testy Cajun locals. Said locals of course are not packing blanks, and immediately begin demonstrating this by shooting and killing our increasingly fractured and freaked guardsmen; picking them off one and two at a time, while remaining mostly unseen. Things get very real, very quickly, and It becomes a taut battle for survival amidst crumbling leadership, unprepared, overconfident personnel, and unfamiliar terrain. Director Hill has always been adamant that the story is not an allegory of the Vietnam war, but the ways in which it works that way, are quite clear regardless of whether they were intentionally built in or not.

Doesn’t matter of course, the film works brilliantly regardless.

When I was asked if I remembered it, and If I would like to review the Blu-ray; I found myself saying “No” and “Yes” respectively. As a life long fan of John Boorman’s exceptional 1972 classic, Deliverance, I felt drawn to it, even though I didn’t remember it at all from the title alone (only the very merest spark of foggy half recognition). On the face of it, the similarities to Boorman’s film are obvious. In practice though, comparisons are almost wholly irrelevant, especially once you analyse the details a little further. Anyway, as it happens; once I sat down to watch it; many scenes, and characters, even lines of dialogue (the late, great Brion James’s excited line “Kill ‘eem!!” being one of them), resonated with that most weird of movie deja vu vibes. It turns out, I had seen Southern Comfort quite a few times as a teenager in the 80s; and I’d just forgotten all about it. Shame really, as on reacquaintance, it is surely a most worthy piece of work, and certainly deserved to have been sitting alongside Deliverance in my VHS/DVD collections all these years.

Speaking of Deliverance, the promo posters for Southern Comfort (and yes, they did have to get permission from the drinks company to use the title), actually references Boorman’s movie by name (featuring the tag line “Not since…Deliverance”, front and centre), which I’m not wholly convinced was a good idea, or something Walter Hill would have been in favour of doing.

The film features an ensemble cast of good, solid actors; and a wide range of natural personality types. Powers Boothe and Keith Carradine head things up, and both men are great to watch. They do what good actors should always do, and that’s, make their character’s evolving dynamic something more than merely that which is written in the script. The rest of the ensemble all have their moments too, and there are no freeloaders. They all bring something unique and worthwhile to the mix. The aforementioned Brion James deserves a special mention also, as his minimalist performance as one of the Cajun antagonists is unusually subtle…….and of course, he’s sir Brion of James, so nuff said. Oh, and all you spotters out there; watch for Sonny Landham as one of the unspeaking Cajun nutters towards the end.

I’d say Walter Hill created a perfectly balanced, and intelligently thought out blend of elements when he put all these men together. Watching the tension, dissension, and pressure ramp up, makes for a very taut, fatless 102 minute dramatic progression, and an enjoyable viewing experience that has not diminished over time. This film succeeds at every one of it’s stated goals. The final scenes play out almost with no dialogue, and exchange the relentless swamps for a cajun village location (in full jamboree swing); adding a twisted new, almost ‘out of body’ dimension to the tension. The director holds the movie’s dramatic beats like a handful of sand; knowing exactly when to loosen his grip and let a few grains tumble out, or when to tighten it, and hold hold hold. I wish more movies these days had this kind of poise. The soundtrack is excellent too; there may not be any duelling banjos, but Ry Cooder’s evocative score provides a suitably ambient, and remote soundscape for the drama to unfold over.

A word of warning to the squeamish; this film does contain scenes of real animal slaughter and butchery; which some viewers may find a little too bloody to stomach.

So it’s obvious, I think the film is excellent. however, the Blu-Ray package presented here in its entirety is actually a bit of a mixed bag.

The film itself looks great. I’m not sure how extensive the digital restoration work that went in to it was. From the look of it, and the age and budget of the movie; it’s possible what we have here is simply an honest to goodness, HD digitisation/transfer of an original, clean, negative print. Maybe some further clean up work, but It certainly isn’t a full on mind blowing restoration job, like say Jaws for instance, but it’s very decent nonetheless. Restoration or no, either way; the picture and sound quality here is certainly better than you will have ever seen it before, and as there are no real composite SFX shots to screw things up in terms of HD clarity, the modern viewer need not forgive the movie anything. It works. It also benefits from a solid anamorphic 185:1 presentation. Now then, readers of my reviews will know, I’m not a big fan of 185:1 in general; preferring my movies shot in scope (most commonly 235:1). However, I (reluctantly), admit that the 185:1 ratio selected by Hill for Southern Comfort, was perhaps a wise choice bearing in mind the topography of the main (swampland) shooting locations, and the need for close ensemble framing. There, I said it. Let’s move on.

Extras:

I said the package was a mixed bag, and what gives me that impression most of all are the bonus features.

On the one hand, we have a newly commissioned 45 minute interview with the Director himself called ‘Will he live, or Will he die?, and on the other hand, we have….um…nothing.

Will he live, or Will he die? – Includes typical ‘making of’ behind the scenes footage, stills, and outtakes from the movie, all centred around an extended, and very interesting seated interview with Hill. It’s a nice piece, and reminds one of the kind of in-depth interviews Steven Spielberg tends to favour, rather than doing a film commentary. It’s great actually.

If presented with a bunch of other bonus content, it would be fantastic, a real jewel in the crown. However, it seems there are no other bonus extras included on the disc at all…there’s no crown!

Nothing.

The interview; great as it is, is single handedly raising this release from ultra vanilla status.

This is actually more disappointing thinking about it now, than it first seemed when navigating the menu screen, and it was pretty disappointing then!

Dammit, a movie is not made in a vacuum, and nor is it made by just one person, so it makes sense to me to have as many of the key people as possible contribute something of themselves to the proceedings. Anything less seems a little short changed, and half hearted.

Personally, I would like to have seen the extras bolstered somewhat with cast and crew contributions, at least from Boothe and Carradine; and what about old David Giler (Producer/Co-Writer), he’s not usually shy in hogging some talk time. Was Ry Cooder too busy to come and say a few words?

Nothing.

Just the Walter Hill interview then, and I’m glad it’s a decent (if not feature) length, but it cannot completely redeem the situation, or prevent the bonus cupboard from looking a little too empty.

The Blu-Ray format is providing a timely and welcome jolt of interest in bygone movies. I’m not naive enough to believe that there isn’t an awful lot of marketing ‘money for old rope’ thinking driving a lot of it, but only sometimes does this approach produce utterly worthless Blu-Ray releases. No, mostly, the trend is positive. I’ve reviewed a number of Blu-ray releases that you would not describe as ‘top floor’ either in terms of the film’s popularity, or budget. And while it is clear that the bean counters tend to rule the roost; there is thankfully, a mostly positive answer to that most ‘bottom line’ of Blu-ray consumer questions: Does this release improve upon former VHS or DVD releases, and is it worth shelling out for? Yes, mostly they do. This one certainly does.

So whether Southern Comfort is a Vietnam allegory or not, or a more general metaphor for American military attitudes abroad (of that era); it’s certainly a great film, and has been somewhat overlooked over the years. Hopefully, this Blu-Ray release will help to bring it to a new audience. It certainly deserves the recognition.

Film: