Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

A Tarantino flick two decades before they existed

A preacher (Clint Eastwood) with a past to hide is chased by a lunatic gunman (George Kennedy) in northern Montana. He inadvertently teams-up with a young scalawag (Jeff Daniels) and they concoct a mad heist with a couple of the former’s old partners.

Written & directed by Michael Cimino, “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” (1974) was the infamous director’s debut and pulsates with cinematic magic from beginning to end. You can tell Tarantino was heavily influenced by it because it smacks of his flicks twenty years before he rose to fame with “Pulp Fiction.” It is a combination gangster/road/car flick à la “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), “Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry” (1974) and “Joyride” (1977).

Someone said that feminists might have a problem with the film because women are generally portrayed as sex objects and little more. Yet the average man isn't portrayed much more nobly; they're basically shallow, sex-obsessed, dishonest, purposeless, incompetent buffoons. So the criticism of the film goes both ways.

It might help to understand the flick as picaresque wherein the protagonists are amiable rogues, bohemians, adventurers, rapscallions, which is what the root word ‘picaro’ means. These kinds of yarns include satire, comedy, sarcasm and acerbic social criticism with an episodic plot revolving around an often pointless quest. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966) is a good example. But this is superior to that overpraised Spaghetti Western because the picaros are more likable and interesting, not to mention it’s just all-around more entertaining, which is helped by the magnificent Montanan scenery.

Despite their shallow depictions, the movie scores pretty well in the feminine department with June Fairchild standing out as Gloria. Erica Hagen has a small part as a blonde waitress and Catherine Bach has a glorified cameo.

The film runs 1 hour, 55 minutes and was shot exclusively in the Great Falls extended region of northern Montana.

GRADE: A-

A hit-and-miss, if still probably good, 1974 film.

'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' fails as a comedy but actually does work as a road trip/heist movie, even with a surprisingly sombre ending. To further the mixed bag feeling, I found the acting talent to be just that.

I'd say this is one of Clint Eastwood's weakest performances, though Jeff Bridges has a lot of fun and is the standout in his role. George Kennedy is closely behind him and ahead of Eastwood, in my opinion.

The film attempts a lot, I'm not convinced it all works, but I'd recommend it - the pacing is on point, so it doesn't drag.

"Thunderbolt" (Clint Eastwood) makes a living posing as a priest in backwater chapels when he is rumbled by a man who knows who he really is. By pure chance, he makes good his escape by climbing into the car of a passing motorist, whom he quickly nicknames "Lightfoot" (Jeff Bridges). This younger man is captivated by the excitement of his new best pal, and with the two of them actually getting on quite well they are soon treading a fine line between the legal and the not so! Meantime, hot on their trail is the menacing "Leary" (George Kennedy) and his goofy pal "Eddie" (Geoffrey Lewis). Why are they so persistent? Well it turns out that "Thunderbolt" had been part of an armed robbery that had netted half a million dollars. The cops had claimed the cash had been recovered, but a few folks know that isn't quite true and assumptions are being made about who betrayed whom! There's only one solution, and that's to reunite the original team and try to recover the cash - but even that comes with significant risk, especially for the young "Lightfoot" whose smart mouth has managed to irritate "Leary". It's violent, yes, but tempered with some really quite poignant moments as the men begin to form quite a robust relationship that sees the older start to care more for his enthusiastic and naive protégé, and there's also some fun to be had as they don some tights over their heads and add quite a bit of spice to a young pair's sex life. It does fall apart a little at the end, but even that is still quite touching as we watch certainly of one Eastwood's more characterful hard man roles, and one of Bridges and Kennedy's best too.