Extreme Prejudice (1987) on Netflix
Texas Ranger Jack Benteen and cocaine kingpin Cash Bailey were childhood friends, now adversaries. Bailey wants Benteen to look the other way; an off-the-books Army unit arrives in town.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.7/1010,088 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jack Benteen is a Texas Ranger working the border country around El Paso. Cash Bailey, his best friend in high school, crossed into Mexico and became a major cocaine trafficker who wants shipments moved north without interference. Bailey offers Benteen money to look the other way; Benteen refuses and is warned to stay out of it. Sarita Cisneros, who was Bailey's woman before she took up with Benteen, is the one link still between the two men. At the El Paso airport, five Army sergeants meet Major Paul Hackett, who leads the clandestine Zombie Unit, soldiers reported killed in action and on temporary assignment to him for a secret mission.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Extreme Prejudice (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Composer Ry Cooder's roughly 100-year-old guitar, which he was using for the soundtrack and had brought in to give Walter Hill ideas, was stolen off the set while the film was shooting.
- Veteran editor Billy Weber was brought in during post-production to cut 45 minutes out of the film; Michael Ironside's role was reduced and a CIA subplot with Andrew Robinson was removed so completely that Robinson does not appear in the finished film.
- John Milius, who wrote the story, gave away the abandoned ending in a 1978 interview: drug dealers take over a Texas town, a Vietnam veteran wipes them out, and a Pentagon meeting reveals it was all a top secret experiment testing how far Americans can be pushed.
- Walter Hill was told to shoot more of the final shootout, went back and filmed extra footage, then cut it down because "it got too big", and several action scenes were trimmed to avoid an X rating.
- Jerry Goldsmith's music for the original trailer was rejected and not used; the trailer that ran instead used Giorgio Moroder's "Paul's Theme" from Cat People and Mike Oldfield's "Evacuation" from The Killing Fields.
- Nick Nolte spent three weeks in Texas with real-life Ranger Joaquin Jackson learning a Ranger's day-to-day activities, then worked what he learned into his character's mannerisms and dress.
- The film's northern Mexico scenes were shot in Santa Clarita, California, doubling for Mexico, and in El Paso, Texas, after plans to shoot on location in Mexico were abandoned for financial reasons.
