The Film: 4/5

NOTE: The text of this review was taken mostly from my June 2013 review of the Twilight Time Blu-ray, with the appropriate updates made to reflect any changes in this new Blu-ray release from Eureka.

During the Great Depression, a mysterious drifter named Chaney (Charles Bronson) arrives in a Louisiana town via boxcar transportation. With just six dollars to his name he chances upon an illegal bare-knuckle fight where the fighter represented by gregarious promoter "Speed" Weed (James Coburn) handily gets his ass handed to him. Sensing an opportunity Chaney offers his services as a fighter to Speed and wins his first brawl with a single punch. Speed is determined to build his fortune on Chaney's abilities and the two form an alliance to split every cent made from a fight down the middle. They head to New Orleans and Speed hires opium-addicted former medical student Poe (Strother Martin) to be their cut man.

Speed begins setting up fights for Chaney with an eye toward challenging Jim Henry (Robert Tessier), a hulking bruiser represented by local seafood entrepreneur Chick Gandil (Michael McGuire). But before that can happen Speed must raise $3,000 to stake his fighter in the match, and he's already heavily in debt to loan sharks who are prepared to use violence of their own to collect what they are owed. In the meantime, Chaney becomes infatuated with Lucy Simpson (Jill Ireland), who lives alone since her husband went to prison, and they begin a relationship. Chaney has made it clear to Speed and Poe that once he makes enough money to keep traveling the country he intends to leave the underground fighting circuit. He doesn't count on Gandil and Speed's unsavory debtors pressing him back into service for one last fight, with the prize being something more important than money: the life of the unscrupulous manager who has become his friend.

Walter Hill is one of the best directors of pure action to work in the film industry since the emergence of the New Hollywood in the late 60's/early 70's. He studied at the feet of the master Sam Peckinpah, wrote diamond-tough screenplays like The Getaway and Hickey & Boggs (a much cooler use of Robert Culp and Bill Cosby's buddy-buddy chemistry than every season of I, Spy combined), and then graduated to making his own bracing action classics like The Warriors, The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, and 48 Hrs. It was the success of the latter film (owing as much to Hill's steely direction as to the breakout star performance from Eddie Murphy) that gave Hill license to indulge himself in grander escapades on screen. His career never really recovered once he started churning out worthy but expensive flops like Streets of Fire and Geronimo: An American Legend.

Every now and then the old Walter Hill pops up in the form of Trespass or Undisputed, and just a few years ago he made Bullet to the Head with Sylvester Stallone (which was pretty damn good for what it was). The world seems to have passed him by just as it did with Peckinpah and John Ford and Howard Hawks and Raoul Walsh and even John Carpenter, a fellow student of the old masters of American tough guy cinema who went on to make sci-fi, action, and horror films that were old school westerns at their core. At least Hill continues to ply his trade even as Hollywood would just as well prefer he retire quietly and let them get back to the business of making multiple superhero movies and Fast and the Furious sequels. The works of directors like Walter Hill deserve to be studied and appreciated and used to inspire future generations of storytellers using expansive canvases to bring their visions to life, not relegated to the bargain bins at Wal-Mart and Big Lots. Yet that's the way it is. It makes me a little sad.

Hard Times was one of the last Walter Hill movies I had yet to see. When it finally hit Blu-ray for the first time in 2013 courtesy of Twilight Time, I was given the chance to rectify this grievous lapse in judgment. Charles Bronson, another legend of action cinema deserving of more adulation and less mockery, makes a grand entrance by hopping off a passing freight train and almost immediately walks right into the opportunity of a lifetime. Chaney is the quintessential Bronson character, a stoic and honorable man who can communicate better with an expression on his magnificent stone face than a wordy monologue. When he does speak it has a greater impact. James Coburn's indelibly monikered motormouth Speed Weed provides the perfect counterpart to Bronson as the consummate hustler who initially treats Chaney no different than a horse he placed a sizable bet on. Though Hill's star pairing is not given scenes where a friendship is evidently developing between them, if you focus more on what is not being as opposed to what is you will see the makings of a time-tested partnership with the depth and grandeur of a great American novel.

In his debut feature Hill demonstrated an impeccable gift for grounding his mythical narrative in a time and place that felt authentic. The Depression-era Louisiana locales come alive through amazingly detailed production and costume design and the sharp cinematography from the great Philip H. Lathrop, who also shot Lonely Are the Brave, John Boorman’s Point Blank, the original Pink Panther, and Hill’s follow-up to Hard Times - the lean and mean 1978 crime drama The Driver. The fights are bloodless (Because....PG rating) but still come off as brutal and punishing as staged by Hill and assembled by the precision editing work of Roger Spottiswoode, who cut Straw Dogs and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid for Sam Peckinpah and co-wrote Hill’s action-comedy smash 48 Hrs. before becoming a filmmaker in his own right. As Roger Ebert pointed out in later reviews of Hill’s films, the sound effects accompanying each punch was created by smacking ping pong paddles against Naugahyde sofas. Silly as that may appear it gives the fight sequences a power and immediacy that might make you feel the pain the combatants in each match experience.

Bronson and Coburn are a great team and their individual scenes are played out with terrific skill laconic professionalism. Strother Martin does wonderful character work as the cut man Poe, adding a note of drugged-out poetry to his lost soul. I never cared much for Jill Ireland’s acting since she was always given the thankless role of Bronson’s doomed love interest, but at least here she creates a sympathetic and lonely character in the few scenes she shares with her leading man. Robert Tessier (Star Crash, Hooper) makes an awesome intimidating brute even when he isn’t bashing someone’s brains out with his fists, and Michael McGuire (Bird) is a fine villain motivated by power and the almighty buck.

Audio/Video: 4/5

The “new 4K digital restoration” touted by Eureka on the packaging of their Hard Times Blu-ray looks similar to the top-notch transfer prepared for Twilight Time’s earlier limited-edition release. After comparing screen shots, I can find no differences in the two presentations. That’s fine by me because I can’t see this particular film looking any better on home video than it does here. Presented in the film’s original 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, the picture looks superb and the Depression-era sets and costumes, all financed on a budget of less than $3 million, benefit greatly from the subtle softness in the transfer. Each frame gains additional texture and detail, and the grain content is balanced and kept at an acceptable minimum. The color scheme is rich with drab browns and vibrant greens throughout the feature. Hill’s sparse dialogue, the cheering crowds, brutal punches, and cannon-loud gunfire all sound stellar on the English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track, with the integrity of the original mono sound mix preserved with solid volume control and a complete absence of distortion. Purists will appreciate Eureka’s inclusion of a linear PCM 1.0 audio track that more than adequately allows the original mono to impress. English subtitles are also included.

Extras: 4/5

Eureka Entertainment’s Region-free Blu-ray release of Hard Times (part of its Masters of Cinema series) just bare knuckle beats the crap out of the 2013 Twilight Time edition in terms of bonus features, each one exclusive to this release. There are three new video interviews – director Hill (21 minutes), producer Lawrence Gordon (14 minutes), and composer Barry DeVorzon (9 minutes) – that explore the genesis and production of the film, the working relationships between cast and crew, and much more. Some fascinating behind-the-scenes tales are contained within these featurettes. Hill also appears in an audio interview (31 minutes) recorded at London’s National Film Theater in 1984. Finally, we have the original theatrical trailer (2 minutes) and a collector’s booklet featuring a reprint of Pauline Kael’s 1975 review of Hard Times, “The Visceral Poetry of Pulp”, and a small gallery of movie posters from around the world. A DVD copy has also been included.

Overall: 4/5

Never doubt Walter Hill's ability to make a movie that is both exciting, honest, and emotional without becoming overly complex and dull. His best films are minor masterworks of classical moviemaking that remain as timeless as when they were first released. Hard Times is one of his more underappreciated features, and while it may not be fast, it’s sure as hell furious and packs a much stronger punch than any mighty blow unleashed by Superman. With its stellar high-definition transfer and informative array of fresh retrospective supplements, Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Blu-ray of Hill’s physically and emotionally bruising directorial debut is the definitive edition of this straightforward action classic. Highly recommended.