Southern Comfort { 1982 }
Director : Walter Hill
It doesn't take long to realize that Southern Comfort { should it have been Southern Discomfort } is a clever allegory on the Vietnam War.  After which, each and every scene is clearly recognisable as some part of that traumatic era in American history.  Every element is in place, in some way or other, from the eclectic group of National Guardsmen, the lack of training, the indiscipline and the lack of perception at what they are getting into, are all there in spades.  The Louisiana bayou doubles as the South-East Asia rain-forest and the Cajun inhabitants are as deadly and elusive as the Vietcong.  Right from the start, the Guardsmen alienate the Cajuns, treating them and their way of life with contempt and are surprised when the Cajuns strike back with every means at their disposal.  The arrogance of the Guardsmen places them in an alien environment, surrounded on all sides by an implacable enemy who know the swamps like the back of their hands and the soldiers flounder and fumble their way around, their initial mission abandoned in a race for survival.  They soon find that their reliance upon being better armed and better trained than their opponents is negated by guerilla tactics and the soldier's initial hubris slowly turns into fear and confusion.
The Cajun township is as alien to the soldiers as a Vietnamese village must have been to the average American soldier and just as deadly and their reliance upon helicopter rescue has resonant echoes.
There are probably many references I have missed and if you regard the film from n allegorical point of view then you may spot many more.  On another level, the movie works as a pursuit movie in the " and then there were none" style, so it offers plenty to a wide audience.
Keith Carradine stands out from a great cast list, in his usual diffident style but Powers Boothe is another story altogether.  Charisma, matinee-idol looks, good acting ---- Boothe draws the eye each time he's on-screen.  Which begs the question why he has never made the a-list of Hollywood or made a truly memorable classic and gone onto join that coterie of stars who never really make it to the top of their profession.
Ry Cooder's atmospheric score and Walter Hill's expertise go to make up a great adventure movie with style and sub-plot.

 Salvador { 1986 }
Director : Oliver Stone
Film as entertainment, film as an art form, film as a social commentary and film as political commentary --------- Oliver Stone's hard-hitting film ticks all those boxes but mostly it relates to the last on the list, political commentary, in which the director is courageous enough to criticize United States' foreign policies.  The choice of El Salvador for the source of the action is also a courageous selection given that it is an unpalatable fact that most of us know very little about the place and dismiss it as a South American backwater riven with interminable internecine quarrels. 
James Woods' portrayal of the manic and self-destructive Richard Boyle and John Savage's portrayal of a dedicated war photographer is a study in itself of a particular breed of men whose stock in trade is bringing back footage from the most dangerous places on earth.  Despite their slovenly appearance and freelance, devil-may-care attitude, it is quite apparent that these men are in reality providing the world with historical insights and truth via their camera lenses while in complete contrast, the elected and immaculately dressed representatives of the USA are either incompetent, impotent or just trigger-happy.  
Although we like to think of the United States as some benevolent world policeman bringing peace and order amidst chaos, the fact is that in Salvador, America is guilty of interfering in the governing of another country simply to protect its own ends.  Oliver Stone makes the point very forcibly that the Right Wing junta of Salvador which utilises death-squads, disappearances, torture and repression, has the military backing of the United States ---chosen in preference to a down-trodden peasantry fighting with antiquated weapons and even cavalry charges.  Everyone likes the underdog but not in this instance when the peasantry are Marxist led and America's paranoia is quite apparent.  To be fair to the director, he also makes the point that the peasants, when given the opportunity, are just as cruel as their enemies.
Based on a true events, one of the defining scenes is Archbishop Romero's sermon from the pulpit, using his exact words as he spoke them.         Oliver Stone illustrates that the real heroes are the martyrs to peace when Romero is shot down and John Savage's photographer is also killed.
Stone doesn't do happy endings but he does do a thought-provoking and a courageous analysis of US foreign policy which leaves some uncomfortable questions hanging in the air.
Films such as this are not great box-office but will one day have their place in the classroom as valuable historical dramas.

The Field  { 1991 }
Director : Jim Sheridan
A man trying to defend his heritage in the face of capitalist progress, the stark beauty of the west coast of Ireland, a Yank back in his homeland  -------- all the clichés are there in abundance which is possibly why the The Field didn't just go "off the radar" but never appeared on it in the first place.  At first glance, it does appear to be yet another in a long line of stereotypic homages to "Auld Ireland and its eccentric but loveable inhabitants" but on closer inspection, a cast list which includes John Hurt, Richard Harris, Brenda Fricker, Sean Bean and Tom Berenger is unlikely to produce anything less than impressive.  Add to the mix a director born in Dublin, with My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father on his C.V. and the expectations of a well-acted, intelligent film go up immeasurably.
The setting is the glacier-scoured west coast of the 1930's where all may be rugged beauty, but for the inhabitants who scratch a meagre existence from the unforgiving landscape it's nothing but a harsh and hand-to-mouth existence ---made even harsher by the presence of the glowering Bull McCabe { Richard Harris }.  Bull is the reincarnation of an Old Testament prophet, scowling and scathing to everyone and everything,  prejudiced and stubborn he has one single passion which is his obsessive devotion to his beloved Field.  Even in this wild place there is a hierarchy ----the tinkers are at the very bottom of the pecking order, the farmers are a middle-class of sorts, the priest is tolerated rather than venerated and towering over all of them is Bull whose physical presence is enough to strike fear into their hearts.
On the rare occasion when they all come together for the village dance, the tension is palpable and the dance itself is reminiscent of a pagan mating ritual.  There's an underlying aggression in the stomping rhythms which recalls a time when the dancers wore skins and painted their faces.  It's not generally appreciated that American barn-dancing and other forms of frontier dance have their origins in Irish, Lancashire and Scottish folk dances and the similarity to the well-known dances of the westerns is unmistakable ------ take a look at the dance scene in The Long Riders and you will see that it's virtually indistinguishable from the dance scene in the Field.
The Field is a slow starter and gathers pace as it goes along but it never becomes boring due to the fine acting on display.  Richard Harris's depiction of "Bull" is immense and Brenda Fricker speaks hardly two words in the whole film but has that indefinable presence of all the greats.  John Hurt comes dangerously close to imitating John Mills's village idiot in Ryan's Daughter but after a while he brings his character to life in his own inimitable manner, but of all them, Sean Bean as the enigmatic son of Bull catches the eye each time he's on screen.  Bean understates the role of Tadgh who says very little and because of that it's difficult to assess his intelligence.  He appears to be pondering matters deeply but there is a suspicion that in reality he is in a state of total bewilderment ---there's also a suspicion that his true persona has been so suppressed that it exists only in some murky recesses of his mind.  Tadgh appears to be living his life constantly gazing into an impenetrable fog which may or may not be a sign of a lack of intelligence but the suspicion lingers that it is solely down to the constant state of fear engendered living in the shadow of the fearsome Bull.
The real focus of the film is not the eponymous field at all but the flawed Bull whose tragedy is that his formidable strength of character has been misdirected and misused to the detriment of everyone around him when it could so easily have been a force for good.  His obsessive nature fails to recognize that none of us really own anything in this world and like everything else his field was just on loan.

Rounders { 2001 }
Director : John Dahl 
Rounders is an unusual film in that it is multi-layered and works on every level.  Firstly, it is a film built around the game of poker and the people who play the game, so if you have never walked home with what appears to be a rock in your stomach after losing a week's wages on a Friday night, then much of the film will be lost on you.  According to a reliable source, the poker games are so authentic that the film has turned into a cult movie for aficionados of the game.
In keeping with the poker theme, Rounders is also a fine example of  modern film noir and is packed with a cast of Runyonesque characters with the same colourful names but minus the charm, inhabiting a smoke-filled, subterranean world where violence is just the turn of a card away.  Their latent viciousness and the ever-present threat of serious reprisals for insults, real or imagined, gives the poker games an added edge.  At the heart of this gambling empire-Manhattan - style, is Teddy KGB, a name which could be quite comical but for the fact that, played by John Malkovitch, Teddy is a brooding, humourless Russian Mafia boss who hates to lose.   None of the other characters are men to be trifled with and there is a suggestion that the smoky poker-games, while played for high stakes, are just a  distraction in between more serious activities.
But most of all, Rounders is about the nature of friendship which is where the dream-team of Matt Damon and Edward Norton come into their own.  Edward Norton as the aptly named Worm is the kid that you were always told to keep away from ----"he'll get you into trouble" ---and that's precisely what he does to Mike { Matt Damon }.  The mercurial Worm lives his life on the edge and falling deeper into his murky world with each passing day, he courts disaster at every turn ---defying the gangs and committing the ultimate sin of cheating at the table.  Worm drags Mike into his sleazy world which Mike reluctantly enters and is gradually dragged down with his friend.  Most people will recognize someone who has presumed upon their friendship and this is what Worm does best and Mike loses his girl, his money and his reputation as he pulls Worm out of one disaster after another.  How he can finally fulfil his obligation and return to his former life-style leads Mike into confrontations which must be faced before he can extricate himself from the weasel words and faux-macho posturing of Worm who seems bent on self-destruction.
A glance at John Dahl's C.V. is nothing to write home about but in Rounders he has created a minor masterpiece.

My Kingdom  { 2001 }
Director : Don Boyd
When it comes to film directors, the name Don Boyd hardly trips off the tongue---in fact you might be hard pressed to name another film he has done.  Nevertheless, he has been working for quite a while now and if he has struggled in the past, it all comes together in My Kingdom.  The film is a grim tale of a crime family and translates well from its King Lear roots ---- it always helps to have a screenplay already written by an established author.  The setting is Liverpool and although it's almost compulsory to use the run-down dockland areas, to his credit he also makes use of some colourful scenes elsewhere in the city.  The story of a gangland family  imploding is triggered by the death of Mandy Sandeman { Lynn Redgrave } and  gathers momentum as the film goes along ----although it was Sandeman { Richard Harris } himself who was meant for death in a bungled assassination.
Mandy's funeral is followed by a "reception" in which the whole crime family arrive to pay their last respects to Mandy.  The 3 daughters who are immediately recognisable as Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, are dressed as if for a session at a night club which is what they turn the occasion into.  The highlight of this celebration of bad taste is when Tracy { Lorraine Pilkington } takes the mike and proceeds to mangle the song "Mandy" in a grotesque homage to her mother.  The most disturbing part of all this is that none of the mourners think there's anything out of the ordinary and Kath, her sister { Goneril } just wishes she had thought of it. Lorraine Pilkington manages to steal this scene completely and is electric throughout the film as the nymphomaniac and homicidal Tracy ---- Regan revisited.
Richard Harris's Sandeman is on the receiving end of his families' hatred and is reeling under the attacks he comes under and looking weary for much of the film -----this was Richard Harris's final film before his death in 2002 but he still put in an excellent performance.  Harris was one of those actors who improved with age and his portrayal of the aging crime-lord, about to lose it all, is riveting.  
There is a part in the film in which "The Chair" { Colin Salmon } points out that if Mandy was killed by a druggie then Sandeman himself is to blame as he has flooded the streets with drugs -----Sandeman looks stunned and like many another celluloid criminal sees his "business" as just that ---a legitimate business.  In common with many another gangster, Sandeman seems impervious to the the outside world and he is shocked when it impinges on his life in such a dramatic way. 
Gangster films are always engrossing but whether they are British, American, French or any other nationality they are ultimately depressing portrayals of people whose dubious talents are channeled into making money.  The common denominator of all film crime families seems to be  the inability to use their ill-gotten gains in a meaningful manner and their acquisition of kitsch is unending.  Invariably, they can never have enough money and the obtaining of money turns into an end in itself.  all these factors are present in most gangster films and this one is no different even as the whole venomous nest of vipers tear themselves to pieces.   If Shakespeare  had seen this film he would have recognised immediately many of the characters and events such as the blinding of Gloucester and he would perhaps have noted that whether it's gangsters or Kings nothing much has changed over 500 years.

Shooting Dogs  { 2006 }
Director : Michael Caton-Jones
Any story about the Rwandan holocaust of 1994 is bound to invite comparison with Hotel Rwanda and cynics may suspect some cashing in on  that film's popularity, but Michael Caton-Jones's pedigree as a director demands respect, in particular for the perceptive This Boy's Life.  Given the success of Hotel Rwanda the preceding year, it says a lot about the director's confidence that he could revisit the subject and produce something of the same quality.  However, the truth is that while it is inevitable that there will be similarities ---- the subject matter is after all confined within narrow parameters ------ Shooting Dogs is in many ways a superior film.  Hotel Rwanda is memorable for the standout performance of Don Cheadle and to a lesser degree the vulnerability of the winsome Sophie Okonedo but in the process of relating the grim tale, Michael Caton-Jones explores many themes that Hotel Rwanda ignores.  
The film is based upon the dreadful days of 1994 when the Tutsi were hunted down by a rag-tag army of crazed Hutu tribesmen and focuses upon the slaughter of 2500 Tutsi at the Ecole Technique Officielle where they had gathered for protection under the wing of a small U. N. contingent and the school teachers.  The Tutsi men, women and children within the confines of the school are surrounded by a mob of baying tribesmen whose casual, uncomprehending cruelty as they hack their victims to death is the stuff of nightmares.  Their extreme danger is all-encompassing and the only thing between them and their bloodthirsty enemies are the blue-capped United Nations soldiers.  If there is anything that illustrates the manner in which films have evolved, it is the fact that where once it would have been unthinkable for the soldiers to leave the Tutsi and they would have circled the wagons and fought until reinforcements arrived, the reality is that in this film and in real life, the United Nation's soldiers left the innocents to their fate.  The question as to why the soldiers abandoned the Tutsi is left hanging in the air but the answer is made plain by the U. N. commander's frustration at his orders and the politico-babble of his political masters.  
The role of the Christian church is also brought into question in the guise of John Hurt's priest with an unquestioning faith in the love of God and a pragmatism which ultimately saves the lives of a few dozen children ---the only survivors.  The Tutsi's belief in their Christian upbringing is quite touching but their faith is betrayed by the defection of Joe, played by Hugh Dancy, who is unable to live up to the tenets that he has been declaiming.  Very slowly, his affection for the Tutsi and his faith in the Church are eroded by the sight of the bloody machetes at the gates and he leaves with the U. N. troops ---- a nice performance here which begins with the idealistic Joe " starring in my own Oxfam ad" and ending with his  will crumbling completely.
Shooting Dogs is first and foremost entertainment but the role call of survivors who took part in the film is a chilling reminder that the massacre at the school was real and the bestial hacking to death of such a great number of people was only a fraction of the total 800,000 who died such terrible deaths.  Perhaps such events are of necessity presented as entertaining dramas, otherwise very few people would want to see them, but films such as Hotel Rwanda and Shooting Dogs are in their own way a more powerful indictment of such genocides than any number of documentaries.  It may seem morally dubious to present such horrific events as on screen dramas but the fact is that they have far more power to grip our emotions than any number of documentaries and as such are a valuable means of reminding us of man's inhumanity to man.  There is a strong case for films such as this being preserved at some time in the future as historical documents.


Black Book  { 2006 }
Director : Paul Verhoeven
The impression is that the director who is more famous for his Science Fiction films and the famous Sharon Stone scene in Basic Instinct, returned to his Dutch roots to revisit some childhood impressions he had about the Nazi occupation of his country.  Starting out with the best of intentions, it's fairly obvious that Verhoeven has succumbed to temptation and included some racy sex scenes and a sprinkling of action scenes.  In a way it's difficult to blame him because most Resistance tales on film are fairly plodding affairs and inevitably include crackly radios, a traitor in the camp, a virginal agent forced to sleep with a high-ranking Nazi for the cause, and no self-respecting Resistance film would be without its betrayal of hidden Jews.  This film is no different and includes all those elements but Verhoeven's determination to make it different to all the others has produced a strange chimera of a movie and frankly if not for the presence of Carice Van Houten the whole thing would be nothing but a formulaic Resistance movie. 
Carice Van Houten is a virtual unknown in Hollywoood circles and her previous career has been confined to Dutch movies but when Verhoeven chose her for his leading lady in Black Book he backed a winner ----- whether he chose her because they are both from near Leiden is not known.  Black Book is overlong at two and a half hours and Carice is rarely off screen but she carries the whole thing along with an electrifying performance which combines excellent acting, a screen charisma and a rare sexuality which Verheoven exploits to the full.  In fact, the director wastes no opportunity to have our heroine in various states of undress and at times the film descends { or ascends, according to your tastes } into unadulterated soft porn.  Carice enters into the spirit of the thing with gusto but Verhoeven has done her a disservice as she is a great little actress who could and should go a long way.  In a way, it's a shame that Verhoeven has overdone the sex scenes because apart from undervaluing a great little actress it also undervalues the whole film and although it's watcbeable for her performance alone the remainder of the film has little of merit ---unless you are one of a select group of Dutch Resistance buffs.

  
Comments/questions welcome
but if I have inadvertently trashed your favourite film
please remember it's not personal and it wouldn't do for
all of us to be the same.