More than a little reactionary, this Paul Schrader-penned revenge tale is all the more brutal and viciously cathartic for its trappings as a sensitive exploration of post-Vietnam PTSD and alienation.
Its poignant portrait of returning Air Force Major Charles Rane (William Devane) – who spent seven years in a North Vietnamese POW camp and now feels out of place back home in Texas in 1973 – moves firmly into exploitation film territory following a vicious gang attack by thugs with names such as ‘Automatic Slim’ and ‘T Bird’.
The thugs want the 2,555 silver dollars given to Rane on his return (one for each day of his captivity), and when he refuses to tell them where the coins are, they grind off his hand in a garbage disposal unit.
When Rane’s six-year-old son, Mark (Jordan Gerler), leads the robbers to the cache of coins, he and his mother (Lisa Blake Richards) are killed, and Rane is left for dead.
Released from the hospital six weeks later with a hook instead of a hand, Rane sharpens the hook, saws off his shotgun, loads up his car with weapons and heads for Nuevo Laredo, where he overheard the crooks were.
With him is a POW groupie named Linda (Linda Haynes), whose only talent is to ooze sex like toothpaste out of a tube.
At the first bar they visit, they encounter one of the thugs, who Rane stabs in the groin with his hook.
From Nuevo Laredo they head for Acuna for another skirmish. Rane drops Linda along the way and ends up in El Paso, where he finds the crooks holed up in a brothel.
With the help of POW buddy Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones), Rane kills the four crooks (and a few of their buddies for good measure).
Quentin Tarantino selected Rolling Thunder as one of his favourite films of all time in the 2012 Sight and Sound poll. He also named his distributing company ‘Rolling Thunder Pictures’ after the film.
In his 2022 book Cinema Speculation, he called it “the greatest savage, fascist, Revengeamatic flick ever made”.
Major Charles Rane
William Devane Sgt Johnny Vohden
Tommy Lee Jones Linda Forchet
Linda Haynes Maxwell
Dabney Coleman Janet
Lisa Blake Richards Mark
Jordan Gerler Cliff
Lawrason Driscoll Automatic Slim
Luke Askew T Bird
Charles Escamilla The Texan
James Best Melio
Pete Ortega Lopez
James Victor Candy
Cassie Yates Sister
Jane Abbott Bebe
Jacque Burandt Street Urchin
Anthony Castillo Tex-Mex
Ray Gutierrez Grandpa
James N. Harrell Sanchez
Randy Herman The Torturer
Michael Nakamura Brother-in-Law
Paul A. Partain Gato
Cheyenne Rivera Betty Ann
Carol Sowa Mr Williams
Bob Tisdale Bob
William Vance White Billa
Alan Wong
Director
John Flynn
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The thugs want the 2,555 silver dollars given to Rane on his return (one for each day of his captivity), and when he refuses to tell them where the coins are, they grind off his hand in a garbage disposal unit.
From Nuevo Laredo they head for Acuna for another skirmish. Rane drops Linda along the way and ends up in El Paso, where he finds the crooks holed up in a brothel.
