Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder is an explosion violent revenge thriller ever with really great cast and good writing from the same writer who did Taxi Driver.

One of my favorite revenge movies. I saw it at an early age and was suprised to see James Best as a villain but he was really good as one as well as Luke Askew. Probably one of Tommy Lee Jones earliest movies. William Devane's character reliving the torture as a POW just added the fuel for the blowout ending.

The ever dependable William Devane alone make this worth watching. 70s revenge thriller set against the backdrop of the fallout from the Vietnam war. Not action packed throughout but boy when it comes it packs a bloody punch.

A slow standard revenge movie of a veteran returning home who cannot adjust to society and witnesses his family murder he then seeks revenge....well he also has a hook for a hand so its quite interesting watch.

Fascinating story about a Vietnam veteran who has flashbacks about being tortured during the war and how it affects his family life. I enjoyed the story a lot. What I hated was the choice for leads. There was no chemistry between Devane and Haynes. I think they hated each other. The producers should have picked Tommy Lee Jones to play the lead and then found a young Signourney Weaver.

Amazing concept, setup, and even climax of the movie but the acting is insanely wooden. William Devine and Tommy Lee Jones are great but almost every other actor is very stilted, especially the young lady who befriends the main character. The movie is worth the bad acting all for the scene where he hooks the guys hand, and the climactic shootout.

I was 21 when the film was released. The film captures the time, the awkward reunions, the loss of innocence, the thin-ice we all walked on, when welcoming home the soldiers. The movie was of it’s time, but doesn’t hold up now. Direction was “OK” at best and casting missed in a few roles. The actor playing “Cliff” was really bad, and distracting. His whole arc mad little sense, and his scenes added nothing. Budget, no doubt, preventted hiring better actors. Plot was thin, but struck a chord then, only a couple years after fall of Saigon. Like Taxi Driver, it focused on returning soldiers wildly damaged from the war. But there were holes in the plot, a few things didn’t make sense, and it just poor storytelling. Shrader’s final draft, I get the feeling, is not what we see. Shrader wrote “Taxi Driver”, and this film is the same animal, but lacked the connective tissue that made TD a much richer story. If you want to get a feel for the time, watch it. But if you want to see a great film, pass.

One of the best lean & mean revenge thrillers ever made

Major Charles Rane (William Devane) can't catch a break. After spending seven years in a Vietnamese prison during the war, he comes home to a wife (Lisa Blake Richards) who's engaged to another man (Lawrason Driscoll), is robbed at gunpoint, has his hand mutilated in a garbage disposal, and then has his son (Jordan Gerler) shot to death in front of him — they also kill his wife, but he doesn't really care about that. Somehow, Major Rane, somehow, keeps his cool in both the face of death and the young, hot, "Southern Belle" (Linda Haynes) who is throwing herself at him. However, Major Rane may be cool, but he isn't going to go out without a fight. He takes his bright red Cadillac, a gift from the city of San Antonio, and the pretty young thing — for no other reason than that she'll "do anything for [him]," south of the border looking to get even. Rolling Thunder is a "revengeomatic," a term I just learned after reading Quentin Tarantino's book, Cinema Speculation — it's also why I viewed this movie. We're taken on a tour of seedy bars and brothels as Rane and an increasingly frustrated Linda hunt down his son's killers. Did I mention after the home invasion Rane acquires a hook hand? And following the Chekov's Gun principle, he uses that sumbitch in close-quartered combat. But Rane didn't spend those seven years in the Vietcong prison alone. Master Sargent Johnny Vahdon (Tommy Lee Jones), a fellow Texan from El Paso, like Linda, will do seemingly anything for Major Rane, even if it means spelunking into the maw of certain death. When Rane tells Johnny he's found the men who killed his son, Johnny responds, "Well, I'll just get my gear" — I've never given a harder "fuck yeah" in my life. There's a sense of happiness on Johnny's face that is childlike and horrifying as the combat veterans move, from room to room, through the brothel gunning down their targets and anyone else who gets in their way. I read in Cinema Speculation that the original script had Rane and Johnny speaking to each other in Vietnamese during the assault — I wish this detail had been included. The final moments and ending credits were perfect. After viewing, I immediately looked up more William Devane movies.

My only regret is that this movie wasn't in my life sooner. Instantly became a favorite. Solid gritty action with some attitude and style. Linda Haynes is a goddess. GREAT revenge movie, excellent cast.