Welcome to the first edition of Man of the West. Glad to have you here. When I originally committed to a weekly newsletter I don’t know if I fully appreciated the, er, weekly aspect of it. That is to say, I have some ideas of what I want to do with this space but preparation for some of these topics may take more than a week (or two), especially when this is purely an exercise for personal amusement - i.e. research and development has to take place downstream of work and family management. That said, I’m excited to have a couple of issues to work on the mechanics of a newsletter before jumping off into the deep end.
In this issue, I’ll shine a bit of a light on an underrated 80s gem, Extreme Prejudice. Conveniently, this week saw its reissue on Blu-Ray, part of the excellent Vestron line of cult classics. This, and maybe the next couple of weeks, will probably be close to straight reviews of whatever I’m covering. That’s not the only mode I want to operate in - as I mention, I have some research I’m working on right now for some richer topics to engage with - but I certainly don’t mind doing it from time to time, especially when its an opportunity to present something that I think may be worth reader’s time that they may otherwise miss (i.e. I’ll try to avoid the lowhanging of fruit of just writing about how The Searchers is kinda neat).
The other advantage of starting with some stand-alone reviews for a couple of weeks is that, as I mentioned in last week’s introduction, this is as much about exercising some dormant writing muscles for me and this gives the opportunity for me to shake off the rust a little. So a special thanks to you early readers who are willing to stick with me as I develop both this newsletter and sharpen up some of my mechanics. Your early engagement is already helping motivate me to really give this thing a try.
I’ll have another very short note at the bottom of the newsletter. Let’s dig in.
Extreme Prejudice (1987)
Directed by Walter Hill
The first thing that everyone says about Extreme Prejudice - if anyone says anything about it at all, that is - is that it’s a Peckinpah pastiche. Particularly, a pastiche of The Wild Bunch. There’s a natural flow to this connection: Hill worked with Peckinpah on 1972’s The Getaway and has always been vocal about crediting his time with Peckinpah as highly influential on his knowledge of directing. Prior to this, Hill did early work as an assistant director on a number of Westerns, including Gunsmoke and Wild Wild West, and would eventually return to the genre both on film and in television in the 90s and beyond.
But in 1987 Hill could hardly be characterized as a director primarily of Westerns. It’s true that he directed 1980’s The Long Riders but other than that he was most well known by 1987 for 48 Hrs. - also starring Nick Nolte - and a slew of work on action thrillers and science fiction films including the Alien franchise, Streets of Fire and The Warriors. Given that pedigree - the alchemy of early Western work, tutelage under the great Sam Peckinpah, and his own burgeoning career making offbeat genre films and major blockbusters alike, it feels almost inevitable that Hill would and did make a slyly comic Neo-Western Cold War-era Paramilitary Action Thriller like Extreme Prejudice.
Very briefly, here’s a plot summary from IMDB:
When they were kids Texas Ranger Jack Benteen used to be best friends with drug kingpin Cash Bailey. At present, however, the only element linking them together is Jack's girlfriend Sarita, who used to be with Cash. She returns to Cash as a voluntary hostage to make certain that Jack keeps his hands off the drug lord's operation. On top of that, there is a meticulously planned drug bust, in which both Jack and Cash butt heads with CIA-funded paramilitary Maj. Paul Hackett, following his own agenda.
On a basic structural level, the comparisons to The Wild Bunch are compelling. Not only is there some basic plotting similarity - the outsider gang that ends up in a massive shoot-out south of the border - but even the tweaks in Hill’s ‘87 effort feel cleverly resonant. Instead of a gang of outlaws dressed up as soldiers we have the opposite in the form of our Zombie Crew: soldiers dressed up as criminals. Other details vibrate with synchronicity throughout.
However, as the plot summary alone suggests, the core emotional emphasis in the film is the love triangle between Jack (Nick Nolte), Cash (Powers Boothe) and Sarita (María Conchita Alonso). If anything, the core conflict of the film reminded me of nothing so much as Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 classic Highway Patrolman (presented here in a superior rendition by Johnny Cash from his 1983 album Johnny 99)
Here the Peckinpah film that feels most appropriate isn’t so much The Wild Bunch but one of Sam’s earliest masterworks, Ride The High Country. The core conflict of that film is between two old friends who are safeguarding a shipment of gold to a remote mountain town. One of the friends is planning on robbing the gold shipment and either cutting in or double-crossing his friend. Without getting into the details of that movie, the core themes are the struggle to act in an unjust and changing world and the choice to make morally right or wrong decisions. Classic Peckinpah stuff.
That was 1962. By 1987 the world feels like it’s already changed. The Old West is long dead. Our characters here, Jack and Cash, don’t act with any sense of internal conflict or turmoil (the only nod to that will be some of Cash’s final words, that he’s in too deep). Instead, and this is one of the attractions of the film, Jack and Cash and every other character here act as unchangeable forces of nature. This expresses itself as a sort of hyper-masculinity in all the characters. Both Jack and Cash explain that they have never been able to be anything other than what they are. There is no internal conflict of learning how to adapt to a changing world. Jack has Texas and Cash has a lawless Mexico.
The location of Mexico, here representing the Global South more broadly, is critical. This is Reagan’s America after all. The real frontier isn’t Texas, it’s on the front lines of the Cold War. Our paramilitary force has made it clear they’ve done cruel, evil things in the name of the one thing they believe in (America) and have wound up once again on a mission to do the dirty work that needs to be done. Again, doubt or anything less than pure machismo is never an option. Moments of grief at fallen comrades quickly gives way to the need to fight. In some ways, this movie has as much in common with Rambo as The Wild Bunch.
But there’s a key ambivalence to the world as it is that sets Extreme Prejudice apart from its cousins of the time that traffic in apologia for Western Imperialism. The mission, as it happens, turns out to be a corrupt farce that gets everyone killed. There’s no geopolitical or strategic importance to anything we see here. Cash ends up being killed in a true wild west showdown with Jack but one of the local henchmen simply takes over the drug trafficking operation. The world isn’t changing. It’s hopelessly static and our characters simply play their part. It’s a level of cynicism that would make Peckinpah proud and very much eschews the hooh-rah ultra nationalism of the day, despite some surface similarities to those films. If anything, Extreme Prejudice takes in the state of the world and decides the whole state of affairs is darkly amusing and not more than a little absurd.
The performances, as mentioned already, are worth noting for the (one assumes mostly self-aware) pure, uncut machismo dripping onto the screen every second. The cast, full of names like Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown and William Forsythe is a veritable who’s who of 80s genre actors. Rip Torn, in particular, seems to be having a blast playing a local sheriff and mentor to Nick Nolte’s Texas Ranger. Nobody says anything quietly or with hesitation. Every sentence is uttered with conviction and swagger. Particularly from Nolte, whose line reads are really quite something.
This is a violent, thrilling and darkly amusing western of the sort that could only come out of the year 1987. The setting of Texas and Mexico just south of the border is pure genre fare. It provides its own spin on themes we find recur in Westerns, particularly Revisionist Westerns of the Peckinpah school, and it has enough bloody shootouts and swaggering showdowns between good guys and bad guys to delight any genre fan. The added elements of the 80s paramilitary action thriller make this a unique cult classic worthy of one’s attention. Extreme Prejudice is RECOMMENDED.
Odds and Ends
I didn’t mention this in the main body of my Extreme Prejudice review, because I didn’t really have much to say about this element of the movie, but Ry Cooder was involved in the film producing some of the musical cues. Cooder was a regular collaborator with Hill, but initially backed out of the film due to scheduling conflicts. Hill instead got Jerry Goldsmith to due the bulk of the film score. Cooder, however, ended up being available and came in to produce at least some of the music. Cooder shared a photo of him on set a few years ago on Instagram which is pretty neat. Anyways, the music in the film was good.
Besides Extreme Prejudice, I’ve been watching an early 90s television series called The Young Riders which stars, among other folks, a very young Josh Brolin and Stephen Baldwin. It’s entertaining but fairly cheesy, I’m not sure it’ll be worth discussing on its own, maybe as part of a larger discussion of Westerns in the 90s or something.
Speaking of Josh Brolin, my wife and I also recently watched season one of Outer Range. That one is a Twin Peaks-esque Sci-Fi Western starring Brolin, Lilli Taylor and Imogen Poots (among others). It’s fairly and does have a big ‘ol hole in it. That one may be worth your while if you haven’t seen it.
I’ve been slowly working my way through Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West, edited by John Joseph Adams, for… ohhh… maybe close to a year now. The stories are mostly quite good (and I recommend the anthology to anyone interested in the Weird West), it’s just my discipline for finishing books is quite poor. As I try to cover the written word, we’ll see if I can improve this. If anyone else has any suggestions for material that would constitute “Weird Westerns” (whether it be books, comics, movies, or whatever else) hit me up and let me know. Given my predilection for Horror as well, this is a natural sub-genre for me.
On a personal note, there are a fair few historic sites within a couple hours of my house that I hope to go to in the near future, including Old Bent’s Fort and the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, both of those (certainly the latter) would warrant some writing.
What Comes Next
Next week will probably be another straight media review (a film or possibly a comic or book). In fact, that will likely be at least the next two weeks. The reason is because the first major project I want to look at is exploring Zapata Westerns, the subgenre of Spaghetti Westerns explicitly about the Mexican Revolution. In fact, I may expand beyond the traditional definition to look at some non-Spaghetti Westerns as well. In any case, I admit to not having more than a Wikipedia-level understanding of the Mexican Revolution, so I want to do some advance reading on the Revolution as well as the figures of Zapata himself and Pancho Villa. Given how long it may take to even begin getting through some of that material, I think I’m at least a few weeks away from starting this topic.
Down the road, I have a few other ideas to explore including taking a look at the micro-genre of Folk-Horror Westerns and, because this will personally please me, exploring how the West was depicted in that most Western of science fiction franchises: Star Trek. I also want to take a look at Westerns at EC Comics - both the pre-New Trend actual western titles they published as well as the horror stories they published that happened to be set in the West (as I believe there were a few).
Those are just off the top of my head. I’m always open to suggestions on stuff to check out and write about (and they don’t have to just be media reviews) so feel free to comment or email me with any requests or recommendations.
Thanks for reading! Keep on yee hawin’ and hum dingin’!
Kevin