Powers Boothe and Keith Carradine star alongside Peter Coyote, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales, Alan Autry, T.K. Carter, Les Lannom, Lewis Smith and Brion James in this gritty action thriller that finds a squad of nine National Guardsmen fighting for their lives in the Louisiana Bayou in what was supposed to be just a training exercise.

Things go wrong pretty quickly when the squad steals some boats owned by some backwater Cajuns and get worse from there.

I was delighted to see Peter Coyote show up in this, but I shouldn’t have held my breath, he’s not around for long, but neither are a lot of the other castmembers as they find themselves being hunted through the bayou as they drag along a prisoner, a trapper (James), with them.

It’s gritty, bloody and violent and tensions amongst the characters rise, bubble over and threaten to tear everyone apart if they live that long. Upon its release, many viewers saw it as an analogy for the Vietnam War, though Hill denied it. Watching it now, you can almost see it as a parallel to the American political system.

I never got around to seeing this when I was younger, everytime I came across a copy on the video store shelves nothing about the cover imagery appealed to me. Watching it now, however, I was completely swept up in it and the performances. I really enjoyed Ward’s Reece, he’s not a great guy, he’s a bit of a troublemaker, and when you throw in Lewis Smith (Perfect Tommy from Buckaroo Banzai!), and the rest of the cast, all you can do is buckle up, hold on, and hope that somebody lives to tell the story.

I love that every member of the squad gets their moment, that you are rooting for them to survive and as each one gets cut down it hurts a little more because you’re not sure who is going to make it. I was completely captured by worrying over who will survive, and troubled by each new reveal of what the cajun hunters were doing to anyone they killed. There are some troubling moments.

Hill shoots the hell out of this film, the location work is top-notch, and you can tell that the characters are wearing down as they try to find their way to the interstate, holding out hope that perhaps the rest of the National Guard will send out search parties if/when they realize these men are missing.

It races to a final confrontation, it’s nail-biting, and you have to wonder if Spencer (Carradine) or Hardin (Boothe) is right, and those last few moments as they draw close to freedom are scripted, shot and played out so well.

Damn, this was a solid flick. I think I would have loved it as a teen, but watching it now, I was blown away.