Plot: What’s it about?
The seventies were an amazing period for film. Lucas, Scorsese, Coppola, and Spielberg all cut their teeth in some of their best work. Clint Eastwood and the Dirty Harry films captured the attention of theatre goers. Meanwhile, cheap and fantastic little grind house pictures like Rolling Thunder were given the green light. The seventies weren’t just incredible for the fantastic output, but also for the sheer variety of output. Rolling Thunder is an excellent example of a film that has no idea what it is trying to accomplish, and somehow is all the better for it.
The plot of the film is fairly straight forward: Major Charles Rane (William Devane) has just returned from the Vietnam war to San Antonio, Texas in 1973. When he returns home he has been changed by the war. He is calm and detached due to the severe torture he received at the hands of his captors in a POW camp. The world that he left behind has also changed in his absence. His wife wants a divorce and has been seeing a local sheriff named Cliff (Lawrason Driscoll), and the toddler he left behind has grown into a boy who does not remember him at all. Rane just wants to sit there in the dark with a beer and let things be. He emanates a strange aura of rage while not doing anything outside of remaining silent or courteous. In the meantime, he is a bit of a local celebrity due to his service. The kind folks of San Antonio pitch in and get him a red Cadillac and a case with twenty five hundred silver dollars. Unfortunately, some nasty Texans find out about the case and decide to steal it from him. During a home invasion some horrible events take place that I won’t spoil, but Rane is left for dead and has need for revenge. Rane enlists the help of Linda Forchet (Linda Haynes) a young lady that is entranced by him, to help hi. Find the Texans that did him harm. He also enlists the help of Johnny Vohden (a young Tommy Lee Jones,) a veteran that was in the POW camps with him, to help dispatch the men that took everything from him.
Essentially the film is a revenge story, and some of the actions in the film make it a very good revenge story, but the movie is also extremely strange. The original screenwriter of the film was Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and his film was about a POW who comes back from the war and becomes increasingly racist against Mexicans until it leads to a massacre in a brothel across the border. Parts of this story are still there, and this version was much tougher on the troops that were coming back from the war. The studios decided that this was a little too out there, so they enlisted Heywood Gould, a patriotic Vietnam veteran, to touch it up. He made the film much more about patriotism and religious fervor. Meanwhile, in the middle of all this madness they enlisted Denny Brooks to sing a melodramatic song called “San Antone” in the Glen Campbell style. It does not fit the movie at all! When you combine all these things you end up with the madness that is Rolling Thunder.
It is worth noting that I really enjoyed both Tommy Lee Jones and William Devane in this film. All of the acting choices make perfect sense in a movie that is a bizarre juxtaposition of styles of writing. Their performances united the film and made it something that I find extremely rewatchable. One other little factoid: Quentin Tarantino so loved this film that he named his distributing company in the mid nineties Rolling Thunder Pictures. I thought that was pretty neat.
Video: How’s it look?
Shout Factory did a good, if not great job on the transfer of the film. The film abviously shows its age. There are specks and dirt on the negative that were not cleaned up in the transfer and sometimes the color of skin fluctuates from shot to shot. Night time shots sometimes have far too much grain and could have been touched up more. That’s the bad news. The good news is that parts of this transfer look fantastic. Outdoor scenes in particular look excellent. Also, there is persistent filmic grain that allowed there to be a pleasing amount of detail in some shots. Overall, this is the best this film has looked but maybe a future release will hammer out a few more issues to make it really pop.
Audio: How’s it sound?
The original mono mix is presented in DTS HD. I personally think that the mix sounds pretty good. Gun shots are loud.The final shoot out is fun if not extremely dynamic. The “San Antone” song is terrible and hilarious. People who love the film will enjoy this mix, as it did not have any problems with clarity that I noticed.
Supplements: What are the extras?
- The Making of Rolling Thunder (1080i; 21:49) – A fun but brief piece featuring new interviews with Devane, Jones, Gould, and Schrader. All of them talk about their opinions of what the film is and how the film turned out. This piece was great, but was way too short as the only real feature on the disk.
- Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:31)
- TV Spot (1080p; 00:32)
- Radio Spots (3:11)
- Photo Gallery (1080p; 2:07)
The Bottom Line
Rolling Thunder is a lot of fun to watch. I think if you watched this in a room with thirty people you would get thirty different reactions as to what exactly this film is. Shout Factory has done a capable job on the transfer, but has left me wanting much more in the supplements department. If you are a fan of the film, this is well worth adding to your collection just for a new transfer of the film. Recommended!
