Rolling Thunder

ROLLING THUNDER (1977)

Directed by John Flynn

Written by Paul Schrader & Heywood Gould

Recommendation by

Justin Hugh Dickinson

One of the all time great revenge flicks, right up there with Coffy, Point Blank, and Get Carter (the original), Rolling Thunder stars William Devane as returning Vietnam Vet, Charles Rane who has spent 1,000 days in a Vietcong prison camp. We meet him as he and his friend Johnny (Tommy Lee Jones) are flying back into their small hometown. Rane is greeted with a parade then takes the stage, gives a speech, and is presented with a box of 1,000 rare gold coins, representing each day he was in the camp. The festivities end and Rane and Johnny promise to stay in touch as they go back to what was what their lives.

Rane’s home-life has certainly changed; not only does his son barely remember him but his wife, Janet (Lisa Richards), has a new guy living with her. Rane takes this all in stride though and fixes up the shed as a place to sleep.

Naturally still holding onto demons from being tortured in ‘Nam, Rane (in great scene) shows Janet’s new beau one of the horrors he endured by having the boyfriend bind Rane’s arms behind him and pull up as hard as he can. This understandably freaks the boyfriend out a bit and shows that, while he has not totally gone off the deep end, Rane has issues.

Then things get bad.

A group of scum bags led by James Best (best known for playing Ernest P. Coltrane on “The Dukes of Hazard”, but also from Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor and The Killer Shrews) invade Rane’s house looking for those gold coins. Rane won’t tell them though. Even after they massacre his wife and son and stick his hand down the garbage disposal. They beat him within an inch of his life and take off after tearing through house and finding the box of coins.

As Rane is recovering in the hospital, he is fitted with a shiny steel, workable two-prong hook in lieu of his missing hand. He won’t identify the killers to anyone because he wants to take them down himself with the help of Johnny.

Rane begins getting ready for retribution. He sharpens the prongs of his claw to deadly points, saws off the barrel of a shotgun, target practices, and figures out how to load a .38 and shotgun with his hook hand. All the while looking emotionless, unsympathetic--a stone visage behind mirrored sunglasses.

He gets behind the wheel of a huge, red convertible, and drives down his road to bloody reprisal. Along the way he meets Linda (Linda Haynes), a cute, blonde waitress, and she joins him on the spur of the moment.

Rane discovers the killers are in Mexico and that’s when he calls up Johnny who is more than willing to join his old buddy since it seems he cannot completely cope with his relatives and the “normality” of being back home.

When they meet up the carnage ensues.

Except for cult film fans or those that saw it when it was originally released, Rolling Thunder seems to have almost been forgotten, which is a shame. It should rightfully be recognized as one of the hardest-hitting, action revenge classics of the 1970s.

William Devane has never been better and Tommy Lee Jones gives a great understated performance.

This is one of Paul Schrader’s best scripts--lean and mean. It could be argued that this makes an interesting companion piece to Taxi Driver, in that they both deal with intense protagonists who are mentally unbalanced (though Travis Bickle could be said to be a complete sociopath) Vietnam Vets drawn into worlds of brutal violence upon coming back “home”.

John Flynn can be a very underrated director. Definitely seek out Rolling Thunder . Some of his other films that are worth seeing are Best Seller (starring James Woods and Brian Dennehy and written by Larry Cohen) and The Outfit (with Robert Duvall,Joe Don Baker,Sheree North, Robert Ryan, Timothy Farrell, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Marie Windsor). The Outfit is a great crime thriller that is finally available on Warner Bros. Archive DVDs. This shows that Flynn knows how to direct, action suspense, and also write (in this instance adapting a Donald Westlake book).

The main theme song for this film was later used in the opening credits for William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration.

Currently, Rolling Thunder is officially available as a Made On Demand DVD in widescreen from Warner Archive

Blastfighter (1984)

Directed by Lamberto Bava

A Recommendation 

This very entertaining backwoods revenge movie was to be a futuristic, post-apocalyptic flick by Lucio Fulci. Problems intervened, the original story was scrapped leaving only the title that, while very cool sounding, make

BLASTFIGHTER (Italian, 1984)

s very little (if any) sense. Nevertheless, director Lamberto Bava managed to make a fun and nasty action film with a few touches of Ted Kotcheff’s First Blood thrown in for good measure. 

American actor, Michael Sopkiw (2019: After the Fall of New York, Monster Shark, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley) is Jake “Tiger” Sharp, a disgraced cop who has just been released from prison after serving an eight year sentence for killing those responsible in his wife’s murder. Upon emerging from jail, Tiger is met by a benevolent cop who shows him this outlandish gun that can just about destroy anything. Interested, Tiger takes the monster mayhem maker and heads out to his cabin in deep woods to finally be at peace. Once he pulls into the small town, Tiger is all but immediately frowned upon by the degenerates at the grocery store, whose only pleasure they get from life it seems comes from harassing out of towners, drinking a lot, and poaching deer. 

Tiger lets their taunts wash over him and gets to his cabin. In the distance he sees some hunters killing a deer. So he tries his own hand at hunting with his new mega gun, but once he has a deer in his sights, Tiger holds off and spares its life. Eventually, Tiger comes across a fawn and takes it back to the cabin to care for it. He drives into town for supplies with the fawn riding shotgun and when he comes back with his purchases,  the fawn’s throat has been slit courtesy of the rotten good ol’ boys. One of said boys, Tom, played by George Eastman (a.k.a. Luigi Montefiore) tries to hold back his “friends” from being the complete monsters that they are, but says that they are going to do what they want. (Even though Eastman is taller than all the other guys put together.) 

Tiger has no problem with him and Eastman tries to be as diplomatic as he can, but it just will not work. All that Tiger wants is to be left alone, but the baddies just keep at it, eventually hunting Tiger and his heretofore long-lost daughter Connie (Valentina Forte) who somehow found her dad in a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere. The scumbags take to raping Tiger’s daughter. And if enough wasn’t already enough, watch out when Tiger finally unleashes the super powered gun. There’s blood, explosions, and there are even some attempts at having your heartstrings tugged at no matter how superficial. You want to see Tiger take down the whole nasty lot of villains and that is what you get. 

Filmed on location in the beautiful wilds of Georgia, I would definitely count Blastfighter as one of Lamberto’s best. Certainly the best in that he did not have Argento producing and co-scripting for him (that would be the original Demons). The music is by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis and I really dug the synth music and the honky-tonk country theme. All said, if you are an Italian genre fan, do yourself a favor and check it out. Note: Michele Soavi (Director of Stagefright (a.k.a.Aquarius, Delirium, Bloody Bird), The Church (La Chiesa), The Sect (U.S. titleThe Devil’s Daughter), and Dellamorte Dellamore/Cemetery Man), has a small role in the film as Pete.

Justin
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