After seven years of being tortured in a Vietnamese POW camp, Major Charles Rane (William Devane) returns home a war hero, the admiring folk of his hometown showering him with gifts and money (a brand new red Cadillac and a shiny dollar for every day he was locked up). His wife isn't so happy to see him though: while he's been suffering in prison, she has been getting it on with local sheriff Cliff (Lawrason Driscoll), who has also been playing surrogate father to Rane's son.
War-weary, Rane seems resigned to the fact that life has changed, and realises that to respond with anger at his situation is futile, but when a ruthless gang break into his home looking for the money, reduce his hand to bloody pulp in the waste disposal, and shoot his wife and kid dead, peace is no longer an option: as soon as he is discharged from hospital, Rane sharpens up his new hook, grabs his shotgun, and goes looking for revenge, with a little help from local 'groupie' Linda Forchet (Linda Haynes) and old army pal Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones).
Rolling Thunder gets a lot of love from the cult-movie crowd, and has unsurprisingly been heartily endorsed by Quentin Tarantino, but for me it didn't quite hit the spot, with a little too much of the film devoted to the emotional drama of the story and not nearly enough in the way of brutal revenge. Paul Schrader's sharp script and solid performances from the excellent cast keep the viewer on board, but the revenge comes way too late in the day (in the form of a bloody Peckinpah style shootout) and is over all too quickly to be a wholly satisfying experience.
War-weary, Rane seems resigned to the fact that life has changed, and realises that to respond with anger at his situation is futile, but when a ruthless gang break into his home looking for the money, reduce his hand to bloody pulp in the waste disposal, and shoot his wife and kid dead, peace is no longer an option: as soon as he is discharged from hospital, Rane sharpens up his new hook, grabs his shotgun, and goes looking for revenge, with a little help from local 'groupie' Linda Forchet (Linda Haynes) and old army pal Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones).
Rolling Thunder gets a lot of love from the cult-movie crowd, and has unsurprisingly been heartily endorsed by Quentin Tarantino, but for me it didn't quite hit the spot, with a little too much of the film devoted to the emotional drama of the story and not nearly enough in the way of brutal revenge. Paul Schrader's sharp script and solid performances from the excellent cast keep the viewer on board, but the revenge comes way too late in the day (in the form of a bloody Peckinpah style shootout) and is over all too quickly to be a wholly satisfying experience.