Extreme Prejudice

Hill is a modern-day Peckinpah. But is there really a need for this pointless, graphic violence in the 1980s? Is this escapism, or is it just a distasteful, needless reflection of what has become horrifyingly common in the real world?

This is the kind of pitchur where if somebody gets his foot blowed off (somebody do), it makes everybody laugh, yuk yuk. Rip Torn (he's a sheriff) says, "The only thing worse than a politician is a child molester." It's mighty fine to get that kind of perspective. Makes you realize Extreme Prejudice ain't so bad after all. [24 Apr 1987]

But on the evidence of this twisted, high-tech "Wild Bunch" update, [Hill]'s still just the poor man's Sam Peckinpah. All the ethics and issues have been eliminated from Hill's nuevo western film, leaving only the violence, the spent bullets and the copious slo-mo flow of blood. Read full review

The result is a dusty-dopey Tex-wreck, a feeble excuse for a string of computer-programmed explosions and slow-motion death ballets. In director Walter Hill's shaky hands, even the blow-ups are boring. [24 Apr 1987]

Hill is a modern-day Peckinpah. But is there really a need for this pointless, graphic violence in the 1980s? Is this escapism, or is it just a distasteful, needless reflection of what has become horrifyingly common in the real world?... Only small boys will be able to keep a straight face. [4 May 1987, p.77]

That final half-hour bears the scars of frenzied re- editing, and it's still overblown -- purple and heaving. And when Hill loses control, he loses it everywhere. Hill, who usually makes half a good movie, might make a good whole one if he ever stuck to a genre and had some fun. But he doesn't do things simply. More often than not, his movies simply do not work. [24 Apr 1987, p.D1]

Extreme Prejudice is an exceptionally bad movie, despite a powerful introduction in the tradition of Hill's bloodiest ventures, Southern Comfort, The Long Riders and 48 HRS. [24 Apr 1987, p.1D]