Southern Comfort

Goddamn this movie is brutal. The whole film sets itself up as a typical war drama but then delves into a psychological thriller about losing one's own sanity and morals once balance and order is stripped away from an otherwise held together group. The acting in this film really does a great job at showing us the decay of morality and all humanity within soldiers as they start to turn on one another and the one thing that is supposed to be held sacred above all: themselves. There's a sad moment in this movie where one of the characters runs off from the group and discovers the corpses of his fellow soldiers who they had recently buried had been dug up and set up as a morbid decoration piece in this hellscape of a swamp. The character then cries out in misery the word "mama"; not because of cowardom or patheticness, but because in that moment, he was no longer an adult soldier fighting in a war he was never supposed to be in. . . but he was a helpless child crying out for his mother to rescue him from this nightmare he was having. But the sad reality was that there was no mama to save him. He was no longer a child. He was staring face to face with his own demise. He was handed a fate too cruel for anyone, no matter what person you are, to have to go through. This film lingers in the same brutality as Apocalypse Now but feels not as intense. But do not undermine this film as just another run of the mill war drama. It is more than that and I think it deserves recognition in that regard. The ending of the movie that takes place in the little Cajun village does feel like it took away from the flow of the movie but still. . . it was an intense scene where even main characters had a possibility of not making it out alive. No one was safe, not even in their Southern comforts. So yeah.

Easy 5 skulls. Writing, acting, cinematography, suspense - it’s all there and all done well. Keith Carradine (Spencer), Powers Boothe (Hardin), and Carlos Brown (Bowden/Coach) particularly stuck out and did a fantastic job. But really, the whole cast was on point. One of the few movies I’ve seen lately that legitimately had me at the edge of my seat. Definitely do NOT miss this one. Fantastic thriller with heavy slasher overtones.

SoGOOD

This is one of my go-to movies. Great storyline and excellent acting .

I used to be stationed at Fort Polk where this took place. The swamps of that place are vast so the premise of this movie is actually pretty believable. I quite enjoyed it and especially recommend it if you did Joint Readiness Training at Polk!