Extreme Prejudice (1987)

Best movie of this year hands down!

To me, this movie is perfection.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Larry McRose (Clancy Brown), Buckman Atwater (William Forsythe), Declan Patrick Coker (Matt Mulhern), Charles Biddle (Larry B. Scott), Luther Fry (Dan Tullis, Jr.), and Major Paul Hackett (Michael Ironside) are officially dead soldiers. They are a part of the secret black ops Zombie Unit led by Hackett. Jack Benteen (Nick Nolte) is a no non-sense Texas Ranger and his school friend Cash Bailey (Powers Boothe) has become a drug lord on the other side of the border. Sarita Cisneros (María Conchita Alonso) is Benteen's latina singer girlfriend. Sheriff Hank Pearson (Rip Torn) is the local cop. Bailey offers Benteen a bribe and Benteen counter-offers for him to walk away from his drug empire.Director Walter Hill delivers an unabashed hard action B-movie. It's a throwback. Everybody is doing their hard-edged characters. Forsythe has a bit of fun. I like the murky nature of the Zombie Unit. It's a good B-movie delivering an implausible story and good action.

Only Mr Hill could bring something so exciting and explosive to the screen, only this wouldn't be well known, as many as it's others, which is the negative, cause it's definitely warrants viewing with an insightful script and very good performances, all around. It's the different and exciting story that makes it, kind of two stories wonderfully colliding together you could say. Once childhood friends, Texas Ranger Jack Benteen (Nolte-dead solid perfect) and drug kingpin, Cash Bailey (Boothe- in one of his performances here) are now warring against each other, especially after Nolte's close friend, and deputy (Rip Torn) is slaughtered. Both enemies vie over old girlfriend (Alonso- never looking hotter, especially near the end in the saloon scene) who had ended up with Nolte. Interfering with the investigation, Nolte has a bigger mess to clean up, where later on, this problem could wonderfully solve his. A elite army of undercover CIA soldiers, lead by their unwavering, hard as steel captain, (Ironside) some seedy, all presumed dead, have popped up, to take down Bailey and company. They are after these documents he has, Cash once one of them, but turned. This is one of those stylishly different action pics, as well as being one of Hills, that only comes along once, one you shouldn't miss. The action shootouts are well staged, especially near the end, with a great cowboy like showdown, it kind of seems weird and puts in a weird disarray, as you don't expect this. Nolte shows what solid character acting is, but it was Boothe, who really impressed me here, speaking such great dialogue, any actor would love to get their hands on. The dialogue seemed meticulously chose, it had me spouting off some lines, after seeing it a few times over twenty five years ago. The title is kind of worrying, when matched it to the movie's story, a better one for something like this could of been applied. All too was the small display of title, etc, over a rising sun. In this R rated version, (the M played cinema wise in Adelaide, more bums on seats) you get what you asked for, heavy squirts of blood and some spillages. You will be humbly satisfied. The whole bloody well made film, is just different you know, and today still stands alone.

(SPOILERS ALERT)A beautiful western-inspired and influenced story of Good vs. Evil set in Texas where Banteen plays a local Texas Ranger on the good side of the law trying to complicate things for Bailey's drug trafficking business, adding to the mix is a secret army operation with more than just money on its mind. I liked the premise of good against evil as a result of human choices and not supernatural or paranormal ones, and what makes this story more humanly-conditioned is the fact that back in the days Banteen and Bailey were best friends both on the wrong side of the law, and at some point one has made a choice to lead a righteous straight path and the other just stuck to his evil ways. Major Paul Hackett (Ironside) surely commits to a choice of his own in leading a group of highly trained military men of different backgrounds to rob the bank where Bailey holds his money and other conspicuous documents supposedly for the purpose of weakening Bailey's business, and that turns out in the end to be just a total cover up and lie manufactured by the Major himself. Setting this story particularly in Texas adds more western feel to the movie especially in the use of that type of shotguns and Nolte's stern yet vulnerable portrayal of a man trying his best to do the right thing yet is often faced by his dark past. The action direction is quite fitting on behalf of Hill which has been his trademark in many hit movies like The Warriors, Another 8 hrs., Red Heat ,etc..

What we have here is one hell of a film. Which goes without saying when you have John Milius writing the script and Walter Hill directing it. Also an ensemble cast that includes Nick Nolte , Powers Boothe , Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown , William Forsythe, Maria Conchita Alonso, the dude who played Lamar in Revenge Of The Nerds and more. Extreme Predudice is pretty much The Wild Bunch set in the 1980's on the U.S./Mexican border . It is almost as good as The Wild Bunch also which is a huge compliment as The Wild Bunch is one of the best films ever made. The pacing on this is quicker. Expect lots of action , great dialogue and stellar performances . Most of Walter Hill 's movies are underrated in my opinion and this is one of his finest works. This is also my favorite western in a modern day setting . I also really like Lone Wolf McQuade, which John Milius wrote also( and is my favorite Chuck Norris film). If you are a fan of action films or westerns this is one movie you should check out.