Rolling Thunder (1996 TV Movie) User Reviews

rolling thunder bad and good

[alpine_1 · 5/10 · 20 June 2006]

One viewer commented bad story and not plausible I say bad story and plausible This show reminds me of Knight Rider.

That being said, I remember when people said that the technology in Knight Rider was not plausible, but look at the technology in cars today. ie: tom-tom, xm satellite radio, on-board DVD players, talking systems that let you know your lights are on or your car door is open, and some Lexus models come with video cameras in the rear lights so you can see what's behind you on video screen in the cockpit. KnightRider was ahead of its time.

Possible plot spoiler here: Also don't some Police units use rubber bullets and tazers as non lethal methods to catching criminals? The movie may have been bad, but technology feasibility and placement was good.

a b movie with interesting characters

[lord_power · 10 November 2004]

Rolling thunder is a "B" movie about an x-army group and an engineer who are given the opportunity to head up a new "non lethal" approach at law enforcement. After having to steal their vehicles back to field test them the military reluctantly gives the group a mission to prove the projects worth. They have to break out a snitch from a militant group that the fbi is unable to touch due to lack of evidence.

The movie is decent for a B movie. The special effects aren't very good and the vehicles look cumbersome. The characters are exaggerated but somewhat interesting anyway(especially lewis and his "bar trick"). It almost seemed like the setup for a series or follow up movies although none have surfaced as of yet. It probably wouldn't have been bad as a series at least for the time period it was released.

This movie is bad, real bad

[acustomer · 2/10 · 4 February 2010]

I will admit, I am somewhat of a bad movie buff. I enjoy movies with camp value, or that are so over the top in their plots/staging that you just have to laugh all the way through. Unfortunately, this movie mostly falls into that little niche where a movie is "bad bad" rather than "funny bad." There were a few chuckles here and there, mostly unintentional and a few intentional (maybe). And if you really must be able to see bank robbers be immobilized with a psychedelic-colored oil slick, well it's got that too. But somehow this movie manages to make web guns and slippery rainbow dye be pretty uninteresting. Which is some sort of achievement, but not one I'd be likely to watch again.

Pretty typical, but still worth the watch

[whiplash4ever-1 · 6/10 · 21 January 2007]

This "Movie" is about 11 years old, but still pretty good if you're not looking for award winning acting or special effects. It was a TV pilot that no one picked up, so they most likely could have done better had they gone to the silver screen instead. Their budgets are usually a bit better, which may have improved the dialog and special effects if nothing else. The script is pretty cheesy for the most part, but looking back at a lot of the mid 90's TV shows, cheesy was in. Hell, it was in before that and it's still pretty dag gum popular today as well. The non lethal, anti terrorist tactics to catch the bad guys puts a different spin on an otherwise typical movie. For me, it is most comparable with the 80's TV series, The A-Team, but with better actors. Plus - a bonus in the form of Krista Allen, who has a small (albeit completely irrelevant) part and that's always a good thing. All in all, given the fact that it was made for TV, I gave this project a 6. It had a lot of potential, but it just didn't make the cut in the eyes of the TV exec's. Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong.

Whip

I LIKE IT!!

[nevsab · 10/10 · 12 October 2021]

I really like this movie. I feel like it's an after school special for grown up Gen-X'ers but it's vintage from that era so all the effects are authentic and they're totally 1990's, "Friends" Era sound effects, fashion, furniture, you name it. I love that someone would come up with an non-violent army plot! How genius. I mean, maybe with some brainstorming, it could have been a little bit more fantastic and outrageous. This is like Oliver Stone good except it couldn't afford the creative contributors and superstars to pull it off. I think it would make a fantastic kid's cartoon series - then you could just draw in the good looks.

One of the worst action flics ever made

[jackreich · 1 May 2006]

Made for TV, the fade-to-commercial breaks often come in the middle of continuing scenes - very awkward. The characters are caricatures, and not well-drawn, at that. The plot is ridiculous, completely implausible, laughably silly. In fact, one of the things that makes the movie watchable at all is to see how bad it gets from scene to scene, and how completely preposterous the clichés used.

As another reviewer said, the special effects are not very good. The notion that the DoD would employ a private group of - ready for this? - four people who outfit standard commercial vehicles as super-duper technological miracles that inerringly defeat the bad guys while remaining invulnerable to anything thrown at them is totally absurd. This flic is no doubt less painful than 90 minutes of root-canal without anesthetic. But not as interesting.