Rolling Thunder

by Bake Snaker December 12, 2006

I don’t have much to write about this 1977 Paul Schrader scripted revenge flic. I decided to buy a bootleg DVD off of ebay (never released on DVD) to finally check it out after all these years.

Very simple by the books revenge story. From imdb – Major Charles Rane comes back from the war and is given a number of gifts from his hometown because he is a war hero. Some greedy thugs decide that they want to steal a number of silver dollars from him. In the process they also manage to kill his wife and son and destroy his hand. The Major wants revenge so he enlists the help of his war buddy Johnny to meet the thugs in a final showdown.

The only reason to see this film is for the last 5 to 10 minutes. It’s basically just a shoot ’em up but it is so fast, simple and base that I had to appreciate that the director didn’t draw it out. Tommy Lee Jones plays Major Rane’s war buddy and damn is he bad ass. When the shooting starts, Tommy gets out of bed and grabs his shotgun.

Whore: The fuck are you doing?!?!
Tommy: I going to kill a bunch of people.

His delivery on that line is classic.

So anyway, the Major gets his revenge and what I love about the ending is that the final credits roll seconds after the last gunshot. Vengeance is his….and boom..over. Nice.