Extreme Prejudice

Walter Hill – 1987 – USA

Sam Peckinpah’s pronounced influence upon Walter Hill is no secret by any means, but of all Hill’s films, Extreme Prejudice is possibly the only one that is an open homage to Peckinpah.  Hill had written the script for Peckinpah’s biggest hit, The Getaway (1972), and from his earliest work as a director, Hill displayed an obvious respect for Peckinpah; from his casting of Peckinpah veterans Strother Martin and James Coburn in Hard Times (1975) to the heavy use of slow-motion in the action scenes of many films, and in the recurring western motifs even in modern-day settings.  The story of Extreme Prejudice came from John Milius, who of course had immortalized the titular military euphemism in the screenplay of Apocalypse Now (1979).  Milius was originally going to direct the film himself in the 70s but set it aside to make Big Wednesday (1978) instead.  The film is stocked top to bottom with craggy, gravelly-voiced tough-guy actors; Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Michael Ironside, Rip Torn, William Forsythe, Clancy Brown, etc.  Though spiritually a western, it deals pretty directly with some sobering contemporary issues plaguing America at the time; particularly the South American drug wars, but also the terrible cynicism behind U.S. foreign policy since Vietnam, which was then culminating in the labyrinthine Iran-Contra Affair.  Ironside plays a black-ops team leader whose men are all registered as “killed in action.”  They arrive in town where a stoic Texas Ranger (Nolte) is in the middle of an escalating battle with drug kingpin Boothe, who just happens to be his onetime best friend and romantic rival. As in The Wild Bunch (1969), everything builds to a bloodbath as the three parties converge at Boothe’s Mexican compound.  Some contemporary critiques disparage the old-fashioned style of Extreme Prejudice; (seemingly unaware that Hill had a specific purpose in mind), and seem content to interpret his decisions as errors.  I don’t think Hill’s films need to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s sad that purported experts on film are conditioned to be so flippant about everything when they should be the ones to elucidate a filmmaker’s motive and how his work progresses from that of his forebears.