Rolling Thunder (film)
| Rolling Thunder | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | John Flynn |
| Produced by | Lawrence Gordon |
| Written by | Paul Schrader Heywood Gould |
| Starring | William Devane Tommy Lee Jones Linda Haynes James Best Dabney Coleman Luke Askew |
| Music by | Barry De Vorzon |
| Editing by | Frank P. Keller |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1977 |
| Running time | 95 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Rolling Thunder is a 1977 film starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones. The film was directed by John Flynn. The screenplay was by Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
In 1973, Major Charles Rane (Devane) returning home to a small Texas town with his friend, Sergeant First Class Johnny Vohden (Jones), after spending seven years as a POW in Hanoi. However, he finds a home very different from the one he left. His wife Janet (Lisa Blake Richards), his son Mark (Jordan Gerler), and local policeman Cliff (Lawrason Driscoll) are waiting to drive him home. On his first night home, Rane's son Mark asks him: "Do you remember what I looked like as a baby?" To which Rane replies: "Sure I do, every last detail." However, Rane soon realizes that his son doesn't remember him. Additionally, Cliff seems pretty familiar with Rane's wife and child. His wife admits that she has become engaged to Cliff and has no plans to break it off, despite still having feelings for Rane. Rane stoically accepts this, but privately reacts by self-imposing the same institutionalized daily regime he had in captivity.
The town is intent on giving Rane a hero's homecoming and at a grand celebration, he is presented with a red Cadillac and 2555 silver dollars, one for every day he was a captive plus one for luck, by the 'Texas belle' Linda Forchet (Linda Haynes), who has worn his ID bracelet since he left. Shortly after, Cliff attempts to make peace with Rane, whose wife he is taking. Losing his wife seems something Rane is resigned to; however, he is determined not to lose his son and makes efforts to build a relationship.
While filling up his new Cadillac at a gas station, Forchet spots Rane and invites him to have a drink at the bar where she works. She makes advances towards the ex-POW, but they don't amount to anything at the time; Rane is emotionally distant and perhaps even unable to connect with anyone.
When Rane next returns home, four border outlaws are waiting for him: The Texan (James Best), Automatic Slim (Luke Askew) and a couple of Mexican heavies, T Bird (Charles Escamilla) and Melio (Pete Ortega). They demand the silver dollars and torture Rane to find them. Rane is totally unresponsive, having flashbacks to his torture in Hanoi as they beat him. The gang resorts to drastic measures and shoves Rane’s hand down the garbage disposal, mangling it. It is at this point that his wife and son return, immediately being taken hostage. Rane lies with a mangled arm on the kitchen floor while his son finds and hands over the silver dollars. The gang shoots all three of them, leaving them for dead. Rane survives but his family does not.
Several weeks later, Rane is convalescing in a hospital. Johnny Vohden and Linda Forchet are visitors at different times. Vohden has signed on for another ten years in the Airborne Division, due to his uncertainty as to what else to do with his life. Though he gives no details to the police, Rane has some ideas as to the identities of his attackers and prepares to take vengeance. His first move upon discharge from hospital is to saw down a double-barreled shotgun, sharpen the prosthetic hook which has replaced his right hand, and set off in his Cadillac.
Before leaving for Mexico he visits the bar where Linda Forchet works. She heads off with Rane, having no idea she is accompanying him on a vendetta. Rane sends Linda to look for "Fat Ed" in a seedy Mexican bar. She is taken into a backroom where a sleazy lowlife named Lopez (James Victor) immediately begins to harass her and Rane comes to her rescue, while also extracting some information. Linda now realizes Rane’s intention and though she is alarmed, she continues to help. Linda is sent in to a seedy bar in a nearby town, as before. Rane locates Automatic Slim and a vicious barfight emerges; Rane only escapes by grabbing Automatic Slim by the crotch with his hook hand and holding him hostage until he escapes.
Conducting his own investigation, Cliff finds the rest of the barrel sawn-off from his shotgun and figures out Rane's plan. Using his police contacts, Cliff finds his way to the Mexican border-town in which Rane encountered Lopez. Cliff is led to Lopez and Cliff scuffle and a gunfight ensues. After being led on a foot-chase through a stock yard into an abandoned house, Cliff shoots and kills Lopez and several other attackers before Automatic Slim gets the jump on him and mercilessly shoots him.
Linda and Rane begin to connect further while on the road, with Linda talking about her tomboy past and Rane talking about things he liked before the war. In a motel room in El Paso, she tries to talk Rane out of it one last time. Despite the experiences of Hanoi and of losing his son and wife, Rane is perhaps not as emotionally dead as he seems. Rane leaves a sleeping Linda behind in the motel (with a sizeable sum of money) and despite her earlier insistence that she would call the police, she cannot bring herself to do so, hanging up as the police answer her call.
Rane, dressed in full uniform, goes to Vohden’s house to find him. Vohden, emotionally distanced from his family, asks no questions and is dressed in his Army uniform with bloused paratrooper boots in an instant. Rane plans to attack the remaining members of the gang in a whorehouse. Vohden goes in first and picks up a prostitute named Candy (Cassie Yates). Once they are upstairs, Rane takes out a guard in the rear yard and goes in the back entrance. Rane signals to Vohden and kicks off a bloody, violent shootout. After surprising The Texan with a hooker, Rane declares "It’s your time, boy" before blowing him away. T-Bird, Melio and several other men are similarly taken care of before the final standoff between Rane and Automatic Slim. Rane coldly shoots him several times, killing him. Bloodied and wounded but vaguely satisfied, Rane and Vohden, supporting each other, walk out of the brothel under the final credits roll.
[edit] Cast
- William Devane as Major Charles Rane
- Tommy Lee Jones as Johnny Vohden
- Linda Haynes as Linda Forchet
- James Best as Texan
- Dabney Coleman as Maxwell
- Lisa Blake Richards as Janet
- Luke Askew as Automatic Slim
- Lawrason Driscoll as Cliff
- James Victor as Lopez
- Cassie Yates as Candy
- Jordan Gerler as Mark
[edit] Legacy
Gene Siskel listed Rolling Thunder on his ten best list for 1977. It was the tenth film on the list.
This is one of Quentin Tarantino's favourite films.[1] Rolling Thunder Pictures, a company founded by Tarantino that briefly distributed reissues of cult films, was named after this film.
An excerpt from this film is used in the track "Blood Embrace" from the album Superwolf by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney. The excerpt is Janet telling Rane that she has had an affair with Cliff. It starts with Janet saying, "Charlie, I've...been with another man," and ends with Rane stating, "I'm just gonna sit here."
[edit] Release
The film was originally produced and scheduled for release by Twentieth Century-Fox. However, the level of violence in the finished version of the film discouraged top executives from Fox, who decided to sell it to American International Pictures. In his Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman defined one of the first screening of the movie as "the most violent sneak reaction of recent years... the audience actually got up and tried to physically abuse the studio personnel present among them." [2].
For reasons still not convincingly stated, the film was released in Spain in 1982 as El expreso de Corea (sometimes spelled in the media with a hyphen, ex-preso), which translates as "The former prisoner [literally, convict] from Korea". A Korean War setting was included as well in the Spanish dubbing instead of the original Vietnam War scenario. A possible reason could be the title's slight similarity with the hugely successful El expreso de medianoche (Midnight Express), which was released earlier in Spain. However, the replacement of Vietnam by Korea is still left unexplained—even more so considering the fact that the time span of the Korean War, 1950–1953, conflicts with the alleged 7-year stay as POWs in the camp and the actual 1973 setting of the film.
[edit] Home release
The film is scheduled to be released on Blu-ray and DVD in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2012. The film has yet to receive an American DVD or Blu-ray release, the only available copy being an import of the film on DVD from Spain, occasional VHS copies or on file sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay[3]. A 'Manufactured On Demand' DVD by MGM [4] was released in January 2011.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Rolling Thunder at the Internet Movie Database
- Hooked on a Feeling - Movie Morlocks on ROLLING THUNDER
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