Latest / Average Home Theater Reviews / Southern Comfort (1981) Movie Review
Transcript
- speaker-0: Hey, welcome back into Average Home Theater. I am Nelson. And happy Fourth of July to everyone. speaker-1: Hey, what's up, producer Nick? Happy fourth. It's glad to be glad to be back inside the average home theater on the well, we're we're recording this on the eve of the eve of the two hundred fiftieth birthday of the greatest country in the history of the planet Earth. America. America. Yeah, what's ⁓ what's happened? Do you have big plans for the fourth? speaker-0: ⁓ no. Me either. Our I watched Jaws yesterday. Yeah. speaker-1: An a tradition, an annual tradition. speaker-0: Today you and I watched Southern Comfort, which we are going to be speaking of. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: We watch so I have never seen this before ⁓ before minutes ago. speaker-0: For we finally This is we finally watched it, but it's really he finally watched it. Yeah. speaker-1: I I have heard of it, knew the basic premise, but I had never ⁓ had never seen it before. speaker-0: Yep. So nineteen eighty-one, directed by Walter Hill. ⁓ who Walter Hill is was known for action movies. And ⁓ a lot of times kind of over the top action movies. Do you remember that movie ⁓ Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis? Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. She wasn't in that. No, when he was the gangster. Leslie Man's not in that. Maybe she is. It's been a long time since I watched it, but I don't think so. speaker-1: Okay. Yeah, that was Leslie Mann and ⁓ not Leslie Mann. Yeah. I thought she was in Yeah, it's been I haven't seen it in a while also. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, she's the prostitute. Yeah, yes. Okay, yeah, Christopher Walken. speaker-1: Yes. Yeah, I remember it vaguely. speaker-0: And you know how it's like over the top action and stuff. Yeah. ⁓ f another forty eight hours with Eddie Murphy, he directs so he he was kinda known for that type of stuff, kinda like a Rennie Harlan, you know? Yeah. But anyway speaker-1: I would I would consider Southern Comfort a little over the top. speaker-0: Over the top. ⁓ so I am wearing my old National Guard BDUs here. ⁓ I have the same patch that's in the movie. So I thought it would be fitting to wear it and I I can still wear my stuff from twenty years ago. speaker-1: It it still fits. Right. speaker-0: But ⁓ so Southern Comfort, I had seen it a couple of times, but I never owned it. And I you you and I and Jamie Ray had talked about watching this and ⁓ me and Jamie even are thinking about doing a who did it better with this and deliverance. Okay. ⁓ now you can kind of see the correlation. ⁓ so anyway, it's about a group of national guardsmen who are in the middle of a training exercise in Louisiana, of course. speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah. speaker-0: And near Catahula in the swamp, which I don't think the swamp is that deep in Catahula. I don't it's actually not far from speaker-1: think it's that that dense. ⁓ Maybe it was in nineteen eighty one. I don't know. speaker-0: Yeah, well it took place in seventy three. It was it was made in eighty one. ⁓ so it's right after Vietnam and everything. And they have to get from point A to point B as part of the exercise. And so here's the thing. Okay, I was in the National Guard for seven years. And it's interesting watching this how speaker-1: And they are idiots. speaker-0: A lot of it is kind of real. Okay. You always have some that just love to party. You have the cut ups, the ones that don't take it seriously. Then you always have your platoon sergeant who normally takes it pretty seriously and he gets pissed off because everybody else is dicking around and all so it it was it brought back a lot of memories watching it. Yeah. ⁓ because it's kind of kinda how it goes. ⁓ speaker-1: The cut up. speaker-0: Especially when I first got in, but I got in before September eleventh. And after nine eleven, I was in about a year and then everything changed. Of course we had to start taking it more seriously. Right. It so but this definitely reminded me of the early days when I when I got in in two thousand because it was ⁓ it was peacetime. There wasn't a whole lot going on at that time. speaker-1: You got a little bit more space. And you're always gonna have some guys that are just there to be there and some guys that are gung ho and and all about speaker-0: We have guys that joined and regretted it and just don't want to be in anymore. Yeah. You know, that type of stuff. Yeah. And then, of course, there's always Wiley veterans like Peter Coyote plays their platoon sergeant who had ⁓ and I told you I said, ⁓ look, he's got a wartime patch. He had seen combat, of course, they talk about it. And he was a, you know, he took it seriously, of course. Yeah. So anyway, I thought it'd be fitting to watch, and we did. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah we just finished watching it. So before we get too deep into it, did you like it? speaker-1: I liked it. I do feel like it kinda dragged on a little bit. It it could have been a little bit shorter. And it's it was it was kinda frustrating to see how dumb they were. Right. ⁓ and the the s the silly mistakes that they made. But there was a payoff at the end when they find the well, without getting too far into it. I I enjoyed the I enjoyed the the last fifteen, twenty minutes or so and I I enjoyed it. I did like it. ⁓ Different than I thought it would be. I thought you'd have been dealing you would have seen more of the the the Cajuns, the hunters going after ⁓ A lot of it was just them trekking through the swamp and kind of slowly losing it with each other. Yeah, the infighting and all that stuff. But yes, I I did I did like it. Okay. ⁓ I enjoyed it. Different than what I thought it was gonna be, but I speaker-0: And back to your point and to what I was saying, we had guys very much like that, but when it actually came time to actually get serious, we would all get serious. Right. I trying to put myself if that were to happen to us when I was in, I don't there's no way it would have turned out that way. Right. So it was kind of unrealistic in that aspect. Yeah. That there would not be nearly that much infighting. I'm pretty sure we would have come together and speaker-1: Everyone wanna come together. speaker-0: And done what we were supposed to do. speaker-1: So and how realistic was cause Powers Booth transferred from another unit, another state, it seemed like. He was from Texas. How realistic was it that we're going out on this training exercise here? Here's this brand new guy from a completely different organization, agency, whatever, and he's gonna be we're gonna fold him in with y'all today right now, right before y'all go do this. speaker-0: It's like anything else though. I mean, if you transfer from one unit to another or from one station, one state to another, Army don't care. Yeah. As soon as you get there, hey, drill is this weekend, you're going to drill. Summer camp is this you're going to summer camp. Okay. speaker-1: Could've happened that way. Okay. Yeah. That's one of the things I was worried about Go there. Go over there and and that's your people now. Okay. I was wondering about the ⁓ the irrealisticality. speaker-0: Yeah, no, that's yeah, it's that's not civilian work, brother. That's how Okay. That's how the military works like look that's speaker-1: There was no grace period of hey get to know these guys and okay. All right. So yeah, and that's kinda how it starts their staging for this exercise. Powers booth comes in, hey meet your new squad and we're going from A to B and it's already talking. speaker-0: All right. Not at all. Talking about ⁓ they're dicking off already. speaker-1: Talking about what they're gonna do when they're finished. We got some girls waiting for ⁓ and speaker-0: They're gonna do. Got girls waiting for them. When I mean that all is very much kind of what goes on. Yeah. So they start the exercise. ⁓ I I don't know. I mean, I guess look, it's Hollywood, it's it's it's a movie. I'm not sure if ⁓ we would have done an exercise trekking through the swamp. Right. You know, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I mean There's not too many wars that are fought in the swamp per se. But then I started thinking about it. Well, I mean Vietnam had a lot of remember all the rain and your little forest gump, you know? So I guess maybe in that vein. speaker-1: ⁓ It was and it might have been just like a navigation thing? speaker-0: I mean we always did land nav, but you did you do land nav in the mostly in in I mean, over here in Louisiana you go to Fort Polk and stuff like that and yeah. ⁓ it was in the woods, you know, it wasn't necessarily in the swamp. Yeah. So I found that that's just a little weird, but without that, you don't have the story. speaker-1: What about Exact I was gonna say the same thing. That's that's where the that's where the action happened. Yeah. ⁓ that's where the conflict occurred. speaker-0: So they start and as they're trekking, they come across some P rogues, which if you don't know what a P rogue is, it's just a little canoe. speaker-1: To canoe. Yeah, they they come they come to a part where they can't pass. It's it's ⁓ it's a river that wasn't supposed to be there. a deep swamp that wasn't supposed to be speaker-0: Something about the winter rain. Yeah. It flooded, which does happen. There are areas that water stays at certain points of the year. speaker-1: And the option is, hey, we either borrow a couple of these boats and cross or we go back and start all over again. Right. Which I don't I like they couldn't have really found a way around, I guess. ⁓ wouldn't have been much of a movie, I guess, if it was speaker-0: According to his Your coyote's map, yeah. They had no choice but to start from the beginning, yeah. If they went speaker-1: And keep in mind they have they have they're blanks. They have weapons, blank ammunition, and one guy has a box of actual ammunition. So yeah, they decide ⁓ they decide it's a good idea. They're gonna leave a note. They're gonna b and they're gonna leave a note here. speaker-0: Well you don't find it out until later. I thought that was ⁓ you know, that was a interesting detail they left in the movie. They could have just taken it. So I was like, Okay. speaker-1: Showed that there was no ill intent. They weren't stealing anything. They just had to get across. And they left the boat on one side. Yep. So they would go across speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah. speaker-1: It was very thoughtful of him. That was the last smart thing they did. speaker-0: The last smart thing, and that's because it was Peter Coyote. Yeah. So they as they're rowing their canoe, P Rogue, ⁓ they see the Cajuns are and now look, I'm gonna say something here. There is no I there's a misconception on the term. Okay. A nickname for Cajuns is Kunas. Mm-hmm. It has no racial connotation whatsoever. Correct. speaker-1: There's plenty of white boys down here with their R C A registered Kunas stickers on their on their speaker-0: I actually consider myself one. You probably consider yourself one as well. I just say that because my sister in law who works in corporate America, she's a redneck, she's in Denver. Yeah. And she was given a ⁓ she was introducing herself and given a speech or something, and she said, I'm from Louisiana, but as you can tell from my accent, 'cause she's got a bad redneck accent, she said, As you can tell, I'm not a kunass. What they lost it. Like they they pulled her to the side. speaker-1: They lost it. speaker-0: They gave her a good talking to you cannot say things like that. And she was like, What are you talking about? speaker-1: I've never heard the story. Right. That's hilarious. speaker-0: The and dude, like it was a big deal that she said the word coon because of the racial connotation to black people. And that nothing to do with a matter of fact, if you watch they say it several times in this movie, okay. And also in the movie Fury with Brad Pitt, yeah, John Bernthal is from Louisiana and his name nickname was Coonass in the movie. Yeah. So just want to clear that up. So if you ever hear us on this channel say Coonass, it is not racist. No, it's that is what we are. speaker-1: Not at all. speaker-0: So anyway, where was I? ⁓ yeah. speaker-1: I didn't I didn't even think about that. But yeah. speaker-0: I didn't want to say it and then if people don't understand that, stop listening 'cause they think we're some kind of racist. Yeah. So they're on the the the P rogues and here come some Cajuns or they see them like, ⁓ it must be their boat. speaker-1: Standing on the shore, on the on the on the far side where they had just left. speaker-0: They start messing with ⁓ we're just borrowing, we're gonna bring ⁓ back, read our notes. Mm-hmm. Then they realize do they speak English? Right. Because they don't know if they speak English or not. Cajun French. ⁓ well, one of the smart asses, played by Lewis Smith, decides he's gonna play a joke and start shooting at them with an ⁓ sixty machine gun with blank to scare ⁓ Right. It worked, they all hit the deck. But then speaker-1: Right. And it worked. Yeah. Then one of ⁓ gets up and decides, Yeah, you don't get to shoot at us and ⁓ speaker-0: Blows Peter Coyote's head off. speaker-1: Clean shot. F they said it was over a hundred yards away. He's in a boat moving. speaker-0: Move and target, peel discount. speaker-1: Those those kunasses know how to shoot. speaker-0: And I told you while we were watching, I was like, ⁓ I don't remember it popping off this fast because it's maybe ten, twelve minutes into the movie. speaker-1: Yeah, not not very long. Not very long at all. speaker-0: It pops off pretty quickly. speaker-1: Yeah, and then that's when they know, Hey, we are speaker-0: We are in trouble. Trouble because all they have is blank ammunition. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Blank ammunition and ⁓ apparently not a lot of good training to deal with a situation like that. No leadership, they're they're their leaders gone. speaker-0: Only one who had combat training is dead. Yeah. ⁓ there's a sergeant, there's one E five, and everybody else is either corporals or privates. Yeah. So there's not a whole lot of experience, like you said, and or leadership. speaker-1: They they can't agree from the beginning. They can't agree. Nope. They they couldn't even decide on whether or not they wanted to leave the body there or bring him right in with them. Which I mean some of the guys are obviously panicking. Mm-hmm. in over their head, you know. This would they they obviously didn't take it seriously and now they're in a very serious situation. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I didn't like that. Like that kinda bothered me that they were ⁓ fighting over whether or not to ⁓ take the body with them. Right. I'm not sure how realistic that is either. There's no way we would have done that. I would I wouldn't think. speaker-1: One of ⁓ one of the guys said like this guy's a decorated war hero. ⁓ speaker-0: He's got ⁓ bronze star. speaker-1: Of course of course you don't leave him. ⁓ so yeah, they they from the beginning they ⁓ they disagreed on just about every way to handle every situation. Yeah. And it only it only got worse that some of ⁓ started kind of losing it. which you see more when they they find the the Shaq, one of the guys they find the trapper. speaker-0: Yeah, they find the trapper. Yeah. Played by Brian James and this guy doesn't know who it is. speaker-1: I've seen the guy before. It just speaker-0: So you don't remember him in the fifth element? He's the one that goes to Bruce Willis and says, Hey, we got a job for you and all like visits him at his apartment. speaker-1: Yeah, he was the the the government guy. I don't remember if it was military or not. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, I remember. speaker-0: Yeah. He's like we need photos for speaker-1: But I wouldn't have been able to say naked. I wouldn't have been able to say, Hey, that's that guy from the fifth element. I mean, he was using and had a full giant grizzly Adams beard. speaker-0: And he just ⁓ I just watched another forty eight hours. Of course, like I said, directed by Walter Hill and he's in it. Yeah. ⁓ anyway, Brian James was great. His his Cajun accent was actually not too bad. speaker-1: He he did he did pretty well. I was convinced. speaker-0: We were joking because he actually sounds like our governor. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, who I just saw on the news earlier this morning and Yeah. Yeah, stop being on TV and saying things. ⁓ So I'm just joking. Governor Landry's doing a great job. Jokes. He's actually my boss, so. speaker-0: Like stop going on the news. Just He technically is. speaker-1: He is he is my ⁓ my main boss, so speaker-0: ⁓ so I mean look, we can sit here and go scene by scene, but we're gonna do that. Yeah. The gist of it is they start getting being hunted by these Cajuns, these coonasses. speaker-1: And it starts to just devolve. speaker-0: It devolves. They they start fighting. ⁓ Powers Booth and Fred Ward get into a knife fight and Powers Booth kills him. Yeah. ⁓ the coach, the big guy, he loses his mind. He paints a red cross on his chest. He blows speaker-1: Some stuff ⁓ blows up some supplies and things and then I end up having to tie him up and totem relong. speaker-0: Could have used those supplies too. That would have helped with their survival. Right. ⁓ there's just so many things that they do wrong. And had they kept their cool and just really thought about what they were doing, they probably would have ended up a lot better off. Yeah. ⁓ they had the booby trap that killed the black guy. That was I forgot about that. Yeah. When it happened, like, ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah yeah the Yeah, that was that was kinda neat. That was a neat scene. The ⁓ Yeah, the stakes and it comes up and it kinda slams. speaker-0: All comes up. Yeah. It reminded me of ⁓ First Blood when he made that booby trap with the stakes that were in the officer's legs. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's a fun movie. I really, really enjoy it. ⁓ it could be trimmed down. Like it there there are lots of scenes that they could have cut shorter. Yeah. Easily could have cut shorter. The scene at the end, basically the climax when they're at the town where all the Cajun music is going and stuff, which is actually kind of speaker-1: Mm-hmm. It dragged. Yeah, it was that was really good. That might have been a my favorite part of the movie. 'Cause like, hey, I I've seen it. But that whole scene I've been to one of those. speaker-0: That whole scene where the the ones who were hunting them comes and they start the little cat and mouse thing, that could have been cut short. Yeah. Like a lot shorter. ⁓ so them there was a little bit of a pacing issue. ⁓ but overall I think I just really love the concept of the movie more than anything, you know. speaker-1: Yeah. It it it drug, ⁓ it felt every bit of an hour and forty five minutes. But yeah, I I liked it. Not something you see every day. Right. ⁓ I guess that's you know, the people hunting people kind of thing, but not in this context. You know, the groups and and it's you know, a a military exercise going wrong. I don't know that we've really seen anything. speaker-0: I've never seen anything like this. ⁓ now the movie Dog Soldiers is kind of but that's science fiction. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: On the the neat thing about this one too is that's that's our backyard. Yeah, it's it it means a little bit something a little bit different to us than it would be for for someone else watching it. speaker-0: Right. I mean we recognize the ⁓ we definitely recognize the terrain. I mean we've all even though we don't live there, I've we've been on tours and ⁓ field trips and stuff like that to these areas. speaker-1: I mean I've I've been on when I was younger, I've been in to with my dad for hunting camps and fishing trips and stuff like that and I've I've seen that. Right. I've participated speaker-0: I mean Lake Martin is only thirty minutes away. Yeah. You see all that stuff. speaker-1: Yeah. And then the I mean there's a guy, ⁓ one of the musicians in the Cajun band is looks exactly like one of our friends. So that was kept saying, ⁓ that's that's a Peloran right there. Let me ⁓ so that was that was a neat little treat. speaker-0: Okay. ⁓ I wanna look at the filming location, see what it says exactly. I had you look at speaker-1: I had looked and it just says Louisiana. It doesn't yeah, it doesn't say ⁓ I don't think it gives specifically a ⁓ like an area or a town or anything like that. speaker-0: ⁓ Let's see. Filming locations, Cattle Lake, Texas. And in Louisiana, it just says Louisiana US. I bet you it's probably mostly the inn with the locals. Yeah. That's in Louisiana. Yeah. Where is Cattle Lake? I mean, is it by ⁓ Lake Charles or in that area? speaker-1: Catalake, Texas, but in Louisiana It was a I have no idea. I know there's a show on HBO called Cattle Lake. That's all I know about that. I don't know where Catal Lake is. speaker-0: Interesting. Yeah. It didn't it only made a hundred and sixteen thousand in its opening weekend and its total gross was five million in the US and Canada. I guess that's not terrible. Yeah. But it doesn't say what the ⁓ budget was, but it had to have a decent budget 'cause this was you can tell this is a real movie. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: And all the effects and all that stuff. They there was an explosion and the the gunshot effects and all that stuff. speaker-0: Which to that point speaker-1: And it must have been a miserable we talked about miserable miserable production for everyone. In the knee deep water, wet, cold, miserable. speaker-0: It was obviously the word. See it the how it w their breath you can see it, they were cold. So yeah, that had to be a speaker-1: It wasn't it wasn't an air conditioned sound stage. They were out in the in the muck. speaker-0: The four K transfer is okay. Some points it looked really great, then other points it looked downright terrifying. speaker-1: Very beginning it was was rough. Yeah, like the speaker-0: Color was like almost flashing. You notice that? Yeah. so that got better as it went along. I don't I'm not quite sure how that happens. But ⁓ Vinegar syndrome, yeah, it it wasn't in my opinion, this is not their best effort because it I didn't mind the film grain and everything. To me, that makes it look like a like a movie, especially an older movie. We're good. They did good on the color grading, but ⁓ I don't know, it just wasn't it was just okay. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: Makes it look like an older movie. speaker-0: They did nothing for the audio. It's it's mono audio, which I mean it gets the point across. Yeah. But with all of the effects, all of the shooting, the the swamp, the ambient speaker-1: The the sounds of a swamp. speaker-0: Helicopters. I mean Right. There was lots of opportunity to at least give it a five point one mix. Yeah. ⁓ but they didn't. They just left it like it is. That's speaker-1: It's been the trend the last couple of things. The last couple of four K speaker-0: This one's not brand new. This one's been out for a little while. I just got it. Yeah, I have no idea when this was released, but this one's been out for a little while. But yeah, I don't I don't understand that. Like, you know, that's not how the director intended. Okay, don't give me that crap. I mean, Jaws, I just watched Jaws yesterday. It has an Atmos track, a 7.1 track, and it was made in 1975. I watched the restoration and the special features, how they did it. Now I know this isn't Jaws, okay, so maybe they speaker-1: Yeah, there's an opportunity. speaker-0: felt like it wasn't worth their time to put into this 'cause they didn't know how much they would sell it because let's be real, I've never spoken to anybody who's seen this. Yeah. Every time I ask somebody if they've seen it, they're like, Nope. Yeah. So I'm not quite sure why, but this is a good little movie. Yeah. speaker-1: I ⁓ I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Yeah. It was ⁓ definitely definitely worth the watch. It was neat to see something set ⁓ and accurately in in my opinion, something set here with our culture, our people, whatever. ⁓ it was neat to see something like that. speaker-0: You know, more than like you said, just a regular people hunting people for like sport. This was they pissed off the wrong people. What did you think about about the performances? speaker-1: It wasn't the water boy. It was good. yeah, I don't I think everyone did a did a pretty good job. ⁓ I Powers Booth was was really good. ⁓ speaker-0: Powers Booth is one of those guys that even though he's not the greatest actor of all time, for some reason you just like him. Yeah. ⁓ I don't know what it is. I mean, he definitely overacts. Sometimes he's spot on. But, and he did the same thing in here. Some some parts it was like a little much, then other parts he was just dead-eyed, you know, because that's the character he was supposed to play. Yeah. But ⁓ I don't know. I just love Powers Booth. speaker-1: I really enjoyed it. ⁓ I think it's something that people if you haven't seen it, go check it out. It's worth a watch. Absolutely. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah. I think if more people know about it, more people would like it. It's just it's one of those forgotten type hidden gems that that people just don't talk about and therefore they haven't seen it. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean I've it's been around as long as I have and I'm from here and I had never seen it. So No, check it out. If you haven't seen it, check it out. speaker-0: Anything else? All right. Well we fin he finally watched Southern Comfort. Finally. All right. Like, subscribe, tell your friends. All right. We'll catch you on the next one. speaker-1: Sinter. See ya.