Review of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) by Ridley M — 04 Mar 2008

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot stars Clint Eastwood and a young Jeff Bridges as an ex-bank robber and an over-enthusiastic drifter who wants to help Eastwood do one last job.

I remember this movie as a funny, sexy tale of two guys getting together to rob a bank. Instead it was true 70's movie: An amoral, misogynistic tale, which seethes with hatred for the law and authority, and unabashedly celebrates violent solutions fatalistic . Despite it being nothing like the movie I remembered, I still thought it was brilliant. No surprise that the writer/director Michael Cimino would go on after that to make The Deer Hunter.

Sometimes I think to myself that we simply don't make movies like this anymore, but we do. Only now, it would barely make waves at Sundance these days.

Anyhoo, worth checking out for very early appearances from Gary Busey and Catherine "Daisy Duke" Bach, and the weird people they meet on their travels: an exhibitionist housewife, a biker chick with a hammer and an attitude, a guy with raccoon in his passenger seat and a trunk-full of white rabbits... It takes more odd turns than a CGI car commercial.

Yes, sir. Highly recommended for anyone looking to enter the strange wilderness of American 70's cinema. If only the DVD had a commentary track. I'd love to know what was going through Cimino's mind when he wrote the bunnies in the trunk scene.