CELLULOID BURNING

Rolling Thunder (1977) is The Limey (1999) by way of The Deer Hunter (1978), but with a hook for a hand.

I’ll fess up and admit it.

What originally drew me to Rolling Thunder was the fact that Quentin Tarantino named his production company after it. In my estimation, Rolling Thunder just had to be some sort of crazy gonzo pic full of tits and explosions or possibly exploding tits. I came to the film bracing myself for a cinematic hell on earth in an easily digestible, cheapo grindhouse form. I never expected hell on earth to get kicked off with a cheesy John Denver-ish song, but this is the way the world ends in Rolling Thunder.

The premise of Rolling Thunder is simple. It’s a tried and true revenge story. Major Charles Rane returns home from 7 years in captivity as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. His young son doesn’t recognize him, his wife has fallen in love with another man, and PTSD is taking its toll on him throughout. When Major Rane is awarded for his heroism, it draws the attention of outlaws who rob him, maim him, kill his family, and leave him for dead.

In short, they’re f*cked.

At first glance, all these elements likely equate to pedestrian grindhouse fare, but the film has one hell of an ace up its sleeve. Paul Schrader wrote the screenplay. Yes, that Paul Schrader—the one that wrote the script for this little known film called Taxi Driver (1976), directed by a man named Martin Scorcese. In Schrader’s hands, this little revenge tale becomes bleak, character driven, and deals with some pretty big ideas.

Aside from its sawed-off shotgun mayhem, Rolling Thunder deals with Vietnam vets struggling to readjust to life back home. Modern culture has passed them by while the war was chewing them up and spitting them out. Even though Rolling Thunder is a thriller, it deals with this subject in a surprisingly evenhanded way. This is unexpectedly heady stuff considering that this film came out before The Deer Hunter. It’s awesome to go back to films from older eras (especially the 70’s!) as they use vastly different approaches to material than the fare of today. If I were to watch a John Cena action vehicle today, I would never, ever expect to see a poignant reflection on the plight of Desert Storm veterans. That shit’s not really done in the action genre today. In the 70’s, those hard and fast genre rules weren’t really established, or if the were they were wonderfully ignored. In some ways, it was a much more experimental and daring time for America cinema.

Aside from all that heady crap, the film has an early performance by Tommy Lee Jones wielding a magnificent unibrow (Caterpillar Attack!), many scenes of manly men smoking cigarettes, sleazy bastards getting stabbed by prostheses, and women with vendettas against bras.

What more could you want?

The only real downside to Rolling Thunder is that it never received a DVD release in America, so you’ll have to resort to shady, gray market means at best to finangle a copy. Luckily, our pals at True Gore currently have it available.

Here’s the trailer to whet your appetite for destruction.