Sonny Landham

In Predator (1987), Sonny Landham’s Billy Sole looks built for the jungle commando film John McTiernan starts with. His muscular build and deep voice are obvious assets, but the understated intensity gives us something beyond a convincing tough man. As the film becomes an alien hunt, that restraint suits a story in which physical strength offers diminishing reassurance. We notice him within the ensemble without feeling that he is competing for our attention. It is a valuable quality in a film whose dialogue can be crude and whose characters are thin.

Walter Hill first used him as a policeman in The Warriors (1979). Hunter in Southern Comfort (1981) and Billy Bear in 48 Hrs. (1982) followed, giving him more substantial parts with the same director. In Southern Comfort, he belongs to a strong ensemble, although the soldiers themselves are not always well drawn. We were unsettled by how exposed those soldiers seemed in Hill’s oppressive swamp.

The limitation is how often the casting stopped at the build and the voice. Landham was repeatedly offered tough-guy parts, and Billy Sole, a Native American tracker, remains within that narrow territory even if the performance makes an impression. Predator gives us good reason to value his economy, but little reason to claim that the writing has supplied a rounded character. We can enjoy what he does there without treating the shortage of other kinds of parts as proof that he could not play them.

The later action parts included Lock Up (1989), but Predator is the clearest starting point for what makes him worth watching. McTiernan’s suspense gives his restrained performance a purpose, rather than leaving us simply to admire the size of the man. The film is gripping enough to accommodate its blunt dialogue, though anyone wanting a detailed character study should look elsewhere. Follow it with Southern Comfort for Hill’s tense, spare handling of another group of soldiers in trouble.