Rolling Thunder (1977)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

John Flynn

Writers:

Paul Schrader (story)
Paul Schrader (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

6 February 1978 (Sweden)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Major Charles Rane Is Coming Home To War!

Plot:

Major Charles Rane comes back from the war and is given a number of gifts from his hometown because he is a war hero...

Plot Keywords:

Showdown | Silver Dollar | Revenge | Post Traumatic Stress Disorder | Grindhouse

Cast

William Devane	...	Major Charles Rane
Tommy Lee Jones	...	Cpl. Johnny Vohden
Linda Haynes	...	Linda Forchet
James Best	...	Texan
Dabney Coleman	...	Maxwell
Lisa Blake Richards	...	Janet (as Lisa Richards)
Luke Askew	...	Automatic Slim
Lawrason Driscoll	...	Cliff
James Victor	...	Lopez
Cassie Yates	...	Candy
Jordan Gerler	...	Mark Rane
Jane Abbott	...	Sister
Jerry Brown	...	Patrolman #1
Jacque Burandt	...	Bebe
Anthony Castillo	...	Street urchin

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:R | Iceland:16 | Australia:MA (TV rating) | Netherlands:16 | France:-12 (re-rating) | Finland:(Banned) | France:-16 | Norway:16 (video rating) | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16 | Norway:(Banned) (1982-2003) (cinema release)

Filming Locations:

International Bridge, Del Rio, Texas, USA

Company:

American International Pictures (AIP)

Trivia:

The film was originally produced and scheduled for release by Twentieth Century-Fox; it was prominently featured in their 1977 exhibitors' guide. However, the studio brass were greatly disturbed by the violence in the finished film, and the decision was made to sell it off to American International Pictures.

Goofs:

Factual errors: At least two instances of incorrect uniform nameplates appear in the movie. Actual Air Force nameplates include only the last name of the wearer. However, Major Rane's plate shows his first name and middle initial in addition to his last name. And his doctor's nameplate includes his rank (Lt Colonel) as well as his last name.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Johnny: Major, I sure do hate to face all them people.
Major Charles Rane: Then put your glasses on, John.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Pulp Fiction (1994)

Soundtrack:

San Antone

Simply the Schraderest

Paul Schrader's very best screenplay--and yes, I include the one about the guy who drives a cab--is this 1977 masterpiece, which wins my vote for most underrated movie of the seventies. (That's a long list, too.) Major Charles Rane (William Devane) is one of Gogol's dead souls. When he comes home after seven years of bone-crunching torture in the Hanoi Hilton, the missus has taken up with the guy next door. After a band of outlaws descend on the Rane manor to steal the Major's one precious possession, tragedy descends on Major Rane a second time, stealing whatever shred of humanness was in him, and sending him on a one-way destination: vengeance at any cost.

ROLLING THUNDER is the pulpiest, the sharpest, and the most humanly rich of all Schrader's "God's lonely man" sagas. The scenes between the Major and his new lover (Linda Haynes, magnificent) are a case study in the meeting point between the broken and the empty. Their scenes--in which the Major almost never utters a word--are a better approximation of the high points of Raymond Carver than Robert Altman's scrambled version. The director John Flynn--who also directed the tip-top THE OUTFIT with Robert Duvall as a Major Ranish hoodlum--never makes one false step. The guts of the finale--a Schraderish reprise of the last act of THE WILD BUNCH--seems amazing even for 1977.

ROLLING THUNDER is out of print and hard to find. Seek it at any and all costs. If seventies cinema were to be defined in a nutshell, this movie is it.