Hard to not think about Drive while watching this, the inspiration is obvious but this very clearly on a different wavelength. Love me some nighttime LA photography. Lean thriller with a very breezy sense of plot, but it doesn’t matter because it’s a case where style is the substance. Was tempted to say this was a “slice of life” type but the way Walter Hill presents this comes off as more existential than anything. Your name is your purpose and…
Early in my Walter Hill education but something I’ve noticed about the films I’ve seen by him is how lean and to the point they tend to be. It almost didn’t surprise me to learn that he didn’t intend this to be a Vietnam allegory, because when you make a film about military men outside of their element being hunted by locals set in a swamp during the 70s..idk it’s hard to NOT see that but the movie still works…
There is a point in this movie where, through excellent use of audio, we learn the implications of what is actually happening and the concept is so genuinely upsetting that from that scene on, the movie starts working on a level few horror movies are able to get to for me.
that’s all I really want to say, I knew nothing about this going in except the very basic premise, so some angles of the story where very nice to discover as the film went on.
I hardly remember seeing this in middle school but mostly the “Legal Assassin” song because it rips. This feels like it’s barely a movie with almost no structure, but it’s not too hard to get a basic narrative out of it, fun overall.
One of those personal Letterbxd posts but not a good day, things coming up that I’m certainly not looking forward to deal with later. But I did end the day with Paris Hilton singing about surgeries and friends chatting for a couple hours while inhaling multiple cigarettes, a good cure for any ailment.
