Synopsis
A squad of National Guards on an isolated weekend exercise in the Louisiana swamp must fight for their lives when they anger local Cajuns by stealing their canoes. Without live ammunition and in a strange country, their experience begins to mirror the Vietnam experience.
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Cast
- Keith CarradineSpencer
- Powers BootheHardin
- Fred WardReece
- Franklyn SealesSimms
- T.K. CarterCribbs
- Lewis SmithStuckey
- Les LannomCasper
- Peter CoyotePoole
- Alan AutryBowden
- Brion JamesTrapper
Recommendations
- 100
The Guardian
It's an allegory about the Vietnam war, a study of American character and a national propensity for violence. Southern Comfort is a masterpiece. - 80
The Dissolve
Beyond its genre roots and its deeper meanings, Southern Comfort is a well-honed study of characters and setting. - 80
Empire
A war film without the war but with some interesting observations nonetheless. - 75
Chicago Reader
Stripping these characters to their essences, Hill identifies a shared culture of hatred that unites a range of Americans. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
Southern Comfort is a film of drum-tight professionalism. It is also, unfortunately, so committed to its allegorical vision that it never really comes alive as a story about people. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Arguably writer-director Walter Hill's best film to date, Southern Comfort works both as a pure action film and as an extremely effective allegory of America's involvement in Vietnam. - 75
Slant Magazine
Southern Comfort is a thriller that twists one up in knots, whipping the audience up to a point where they may wish that director Walter Hill would just spring the damn gore already so as to relieve the tension he masterfully coils. - 60
Time Out
Straight-line conflicts, low-light visuals: the film's basics, its strengths, and its critical Achilles' heel are all those of the classic American male action movie.
