An auteur in every sense of the word, director Walter Hill took the baton passed him by Sam Peckinpah and became a specialist in the archetypal male action movie, reveling in the artifice of the genre while at the same time straining against its constraints. Strongly influenced by John Ford and Howard Hawks (he once claimed "every film I've done has been a Western"), he allowed action to define character, believing "there is nothing more absurd than properly motivated characters," and concentrated on creating stunning visual spectacle through experiments in lighting, montage, composition,