Guest review: Rolling Thunder (1977)

Lately it seems not a week goes by without the wonderful Jack Deth delivering one of his great reviews of movies most of us are not familiair with. This week I’m pleased to have him review Rolling Thunder. Enjoy! (includes some spoilers)

Welcome all and sundry to another Guest Review!

First, I would like to thank Nostra for another opportunity to delve into a film that left a serious impression on me the first time I sat down and watched it. A raw, no punches pulled look into the sub genre of the returned, whacked out, psychotic America POW/Veteran. One that literally leaps up and becomes a smack in the face to a hallowed topic first tickled by a just starting out, Yaphett Kotto in an early, first season episode of ‘Hawaii Five-O’, titled ‘King Of The Hill’ from 1967.

The film’s title is ‘Rolling Thunder’. Made in 1977. On a frugally spent budget that wouldn’t cover a day’s catering during James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’. Screenwriter Paul Schrader’s next effort after his memorably gritty, ‘Taxi Driver. Dutifully adapted and directed by John Flynn after this excellent work in the little known, Donald Westlake, get back at the Mob revenge film, ‘The Outfit’, three years earlier.

‘Rolling Thunder’ shocked myriad critics when it first aired and then quickly faded away into the ether. Not for the film’s underlying theme, but for the violence involved in its execution. And make no mistake, ‘Rolling Thunder’ is violent. Sometimes in the extreme. Hitting its peak within the first hour. Yet, that violence is part and parcel in understanding the mindset(s) of the rest of the film and the characters involved.

The film begins with a Lear Jet on final approach into Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas and the introduction of Major Charles Rane. A B-52 pilot who was shot down during Operation Rolling Thunder and has spent five years in an unnamed POW camp being starved and tortured. A stoic, silent Texan, whose world is soon to be turned inside out and upside down.

Major Rane is a Texan. Not tall of stature. Wiry and quiet. Very Audie Murphy. William Devane portrays him with calm resolve. A hero for having survived his five year Hell along with Master Sergeant Johnny Vohden. An Army Infantryman, possible Special Forces type, who’s more frightened inside at being back home than he’d ever been in the bush or captivity. A very young Tommy Lee Jones plays deep within himself to pull off his secondary role. While being blessed with some of the film’s best, most common sense lines. He’s wonderful to watch! The two are welcomed back to a large crowd of well wishers and an Air Force band. Rane is given a red convertible Cadillac and a silver dollar for every day of his captivity. Speeches are given and Rane’s world begins it sudden tailspin.

Rane’s mini skirted wife, Janet. Played by Lisa Blake Richards, has divorced him and married a neighbor, Cliff. A San Antonio policeman. Played well by Lawarson Driscoll. His son, newborn before Rane was shipped overseas, doesn’t know him. A strange, near strained situation that only gets stranger as Rane retreats to his back yard Tool Shed and sets up a cot. The only thing missing is Paul Simon’s ‘I am A Rock’ playing in the background. As a twenty foot wave of Brave New World breaks and washes over Rane.

Rane tries to adapt through debriefings and talks with an Air Force shrink played by Dabney Coleman, but the world has left Rane behind. He doubts if he will ever catch up. Enduring it all through an evening barbecue. When Rane and Cliff retire to the Tool Shed and Rane has Cliff help in a demonstration of what Rane and others went through daily with ropes and suspension or until Chairman Mao died. Afterwards, Rane advises a very shaken Cliff not to call his son ‘Runt’ anymore. Message received.
Rane endures and discovers that he has a ‘groupie of sorts.. A young lady, Linda Forchet. Played with elan by Linda Haynes. Who’s worn Ranes’ POW bracelet since his imprisonment and is attracted to him on more than one level. So life may not be good, but is getting better.
Until one afternoon when Rane returns home to find a gang of slimy South Texas thugs have broken in, Are holding guns on Rane’s wife and child and want Rane’s silver dollars. Threats are made. Rane’s wife is killed. The gang’s leader, ‘Automatic Slim’, creepily played by veteran character actor, Luke Askew. Threatens to kill Rane’s son if answers aren’t given.

Nine are. So a different tack is taken. The gang grabs hold of Rane. The open flame of the range’s gas burner doesn’t do much. So, the garbage disposal is turned on and Rane’s right hand is brought close. The gang is unaware that Rane has been continuously worked over by PROFESSIONALS and their attempts are meager in the extreme. Rane’s son watches and reveals the location against his father’s protests, only to be shot and killed as blood sprays and Rane passes out and is hopefully, left for dead..he isn’t. Rane comes to amidst a large investigation. Whose questions bring no joy from Rane as he adapts to the prosthetic hooks replacing his right hand. Putting cigarettes back in an empty flip top pack of Marlboros when not undergoing therapy and endless questions from the police. Rane now has a mission. A quest to find those what done him and his family wrong and deliver some Texas style justice. Regardless which side of the border his journey takes him!

Questions are asked discreetly in seamy, near the border bars as leads are developed and prosecuted. Unveiling the gang’s lowest hanging fruit as Rane puts together and modifies a sizable number of revolvers and shotguns. He reacquaints himself with Linda, who leaves her job as a waitress to follow her Don Quixote. Rane’s talent with firearms is honed and love flourishes while the gang discovers Rane is alive and the San Antonio police want them badly. Automatic Slim sends out some underlings to poke around. Who bump into Cliff doing the same thing. A gunfight ensues and Cliff is killed.

Rane decides he has more than enough Intel to move forward. Leaving Linda at a motel to find Johnny Vohden. Who listens to Rane’s hard won offerings and replies, “Let me get my gear.” No argument. No ‘What if’s or anything as Rane reveals the gang’s location in a brothel a few miles inside the Mexican border. To which Vohden replies while breaking down one Remington 12 gauge pump shotgun; “Let’s go clean ’em up.”. Before stowing the first and breaking down a second.

The two head off and find some company in the brothel’s upper floor. Waiting for the proper moment. Which arrives as Rane leaves his room and dispatches one of the gang’s slimy minions. Vohden hears the gunshot and slides off the bed fully dressed in Class A uniform. Assembling his shotguns as his bed mate shrieks, “What are you going to do?!!!”. To which, Vohden replies, “I’m gonna kill some people”. No exclamation. As though saying water is wet.

Rane and Vohden have the high ground, but a huge flight of stairs separates them from their quarry. Automatic Slim has numbers and more cover as shotguns and revolvers are reloaded between taunts from downstairs.. A showdown ensues. Lead flies and finds its mark. More on Automatic Slim’s side than Rane and Vohden’s. The staircase is left behind as Rane dispatches the sneering gang leader and Vohden mops up what’s left while sirens scream in the distance. Wounded, bloodied, yet undaunted, the Major and the Sergeant leave and head towards the Cadillac as the film fades to black.

Now. What makes this film good?

It’s overall manliness and masculinity. Taking on a topic with a lot more honesty than Hollywood had been doling out for a decade. Offering a glimpse into how well trained and disciplined men who make war cope with a world completely changed from what they had known and sacrificed for.

John Flynn’s direction. Revealing parts of San Antonio and Del Rio rarely seen, yet just as sinister as any darkened alley in Manhattan. Also his use of lighting in the scene where Rane reacquaints himself with his wife as she asks questions she really doesn’t want to hear the answers to.

Luke Askew as Automatic Slim. A perfect, wily, sweat stained, grizzly, unkempt villain. A ‘Good Old Boy’ on the outside. Though pure slimy
meanness under the skin.

What makes this film great?

William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones. Showing off their future greatness very early on.

Devane caught my eye as someone to watch portraying JFK in ABC’s Made for TV, ‘The Missiles of October’. Masterfully playing The President as he listened, argued and refereed The Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Which payed off even more handsomely as Devane played Roy Scheider’s control officer in ‘Marathon Man’. No matter what size the role. Devane delivers. And in ‘Rolling Thunder’, he does so in spades!

I caught only a few glimpses of Tommy Lee Jones’ talent on assorted TV shows before watching him play Howard Hughes in ‘The Amazing Howard
Hughes’ in a CBS mini-series. Mr. Jones showed great potential as the Texas millionaire and eccentric. Making me want to seek him out whenever his
name popped for a film or television project. He tills the soil well in ‘Rolling Thunder’. Making the most of every scene he’s in with great timing and
impeccable delivery!

Jack Deth

Trailer
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd4dW6sbplA]