Carl Weathers is a great character actor primarily known for his role in the Rocky Franchise as the brash heavyweight champion Apollo Creed who defends his title twice against the upstart journeyman Rocky Balboa. Lately, he’s gained fame once again in the Disney Plus Star Wars series The Mandalorian as Greef Carga, a friend and confidant to Din Djarin/The Mandalorian. One of his best but underrated roles though was in Predator. The 1987 horror actioner starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Carl Weathers plays CIA Agent Dillin who enlists the help of Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a soldier of fortune, to rescue a group of politicians trapped in a Guatemalan jungle. While in the process of rescuing these people, they notice something is hunting them, picking the team off one by one. The team consists of weapons expert Blain (Jesse Ventura) Mac (Bill Duke) Hawkins (Shane Blake) Billy (Sonny Landham) and Poncho (Richard Graves) The creature is invisible and is hard to track down. Everybody is on edge with them being the prey and not the hunters like they were told.

Schwarzenegger was on a role at this time in his career having done Terminator and Conan the Barbarian by this point. John McTiernan the director once again puts him in the role of macho man and he thrives in these types of roles. He holds his own in a very good cast. Weather CIA Agent is an important character because he sets the stage for the story moving forward in the film. The scares are very real and the blood and gore are up front and center. This was a genuine horror film when it came out back in 1987.

There is a real-world setting that is very much like a Vietnam War setting in the film. The jungles of Guatemala were the perfect setting for this story. The darkness and thickness of the jungle especially at night were very forbidding and ominous but were also lush and beautiful at times. The characters had to adapt to this harsh setting that had Snakes and other predators beside the main creature. 

One of the things that makes the Predator so good is how randomly throughout the film the viewers see the world through the eyes of the Predator. His thermal vision. That adds another level to this creature from another world. As well as a layer of mystery throughout the movie. That kept me and many other on the edge of our seats through the length of the movie.

Weathers has played serious characters who mean business in whatever film or television series they are in. Sometimes he’s done some comedies like Arrested Development and the In the Heat of the Night television show based on the great film of the same name. He has done a lot of different types of roles in his career. He plays his role of Dillin quite seriously though and the horror he and the rest of the team are dealing with is real. He goes toe to toe with Schwarzenegger like he did Stallone earlier in his career. He has that tie to both that has been important in his career.

This film is one of my favorite films of the 80s because it showed me the action genre was starting to heat up but there were different sides of this genre. You could add a horror spin to the action genre like this film and Robocop did. Ironically enough they both came out in the same year 1987.  They both have horror aspects that set them apart from other action films of that time. The creature in both films was very cool, one a bloody thirsty hunting machine and the other a bloodthirsty hunter who thrives on the hunt and the competition. The Predator wants an adversary it can go up against that will give it a fight because it is a perfect hunting machine.  Schwarzenegger,  Weathers, Ventura, and others were all like fish in a barrel for this creature though. Until they weren’t that is.

Predator is a great film that stands the test of time. It spawned a franchise that has some hits and misses but last years Prey has shown if you write a good story this can be a good franchise that can keep going strong. Weathers Ventura and Schwarzenegger were all very good with the line  from Ventura’s character “I don’t have time to bleed ” as my favorite line in the film. This will always be a guilty pleasure film that reminds me of my childhood and Weathers is one of those actors who I fondly remember very pleasantly in that part of my life. In both the Rocky and Predator franchises. He will sorely be missed.

Dan Skip Allen