#jordan gerler

[mariocki]

Rolling Thunder (1977)

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm gonna kill a bunch of people.

[johnnymundano]

Rolling Thunder (1977)

Directed by John Flynn

Screenplay by Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould

Music by Barry De Vorzon

Country: United States

Running Time: 95 minutes

CAST

William Devane as Major Charles Rane

Tommy Lee Jones as Sergeant Johnny Vohden

Linda Haynes as Linda Forchet

James Best as The Texan

Dabney Coleman as Maxwell

Luke Askew as Automatic Slim

Lawrason Driscoll as Deputy Cliff Nichols

Lisa Blake Richards as Janet Rane

Randy Hermann as Billy Sanchez

James Victor as Lopez

Charles Escamilla as T-Bird

Pete Ortega as Melio

Cassie Yates as Candy

Jordan Gerler as Mark

Jacque Burandt as Bebe

Paul A. Partain as Ethan

James N. Harrell as Grandpa

(Guilt Trauma: I was to busy flashbacking to The Shit to take screengrabs, so IMDB got robbed for ‘em.)

Rolling Thunder is a good example of what happens when you make a Paul Schrader movie from a Paul Schrader script after rewriting it without Paul Schrader. Instead of a nuanced, multi-faceted portrait of a fractured time and a fractured man, like, say, Taxi Driver (1976), American Gigolo (1980) or First Reformed (2017), you get a fun exploitation flick that errs on the side of rightwingery. Luckily, the only thing in rightwingery’s favour is that it makes for fun movies. Dirty Harry (1971), for example is great. I particularly enjoy winding up rightwingers by telling them that Harry throws his badge away at the end because he has failed the system, not because the system has failed him. (You can make their veins really throb by pointing out that he endangers an entire school bus of kids. Never mind his peeping at “Hot Mary”.) It’s kind of the same way that Steve Ditko’s humourless Objectivist planks make great comic book characters but would make horrific people. Rightwingery is basically quick-fix cartoon shit masquerading as real world politics. And although that makes for shitty politics, luckily, quick-fix cartoon shit is right in that sweet, sweet spot for vigilante thrillers. (Other opinions are available.)

Basically Rolling Thunder is a cracking vigilante thriller, as long as we all understand it has no tangible relationship with reality, and is taken purely as an entertainment in the impotent white male revenge fantasy mode. The impotent white male revenge fantasy is a surprisingly fecund genre, and yet I still encounter a remarkable amount of resistance to its adoption as a category in HMV. Horror, Romantic Comedies, Science Fiction, Impotent White Male Revenge Fantasies…what’s up with that? Why don’t you reply to my emails, HMV? I’ll not list the many, many examples of cinematic impotent white male revenge fantasies, but I will note their irresistible allure. Being only human I’m sure we all have our favourites when it comes to impotent white male revenge fantasies; Rolling Thunder is one of mine.

It’s 1973 and PoWs Major Charles Rane (William Devane; ultra-stoic) and Sergeant Johnny Volden (Tommy Lee Jones; quietly unhinged)  come marching home to San Antonio after 7 years as unwilling guests of the Vietnamese. Rane’s manhood is almost immediately trampled by the realisation that his wife, Janet (Lisa Blake Richards; trying hard with very little) has taken up with Cliff (amiably out of his depth) and his son doesn’t remember him. Rane starts living in the shed out back and readopts his prison regime, in order to cope with his emotional pain. In a loaded exchange Rane attempts to reassert his masculinity and informs Cliff that you survive by “learning to love the rope”. Cliff is a cop but (obviously) less of a man than Rane because he didn’t go to Vietnam and get tortured for 7 years. Like Rane, (like America? Huh? Huh?) the town can’t let his past go, and a celebration is held for him at which Rane monosyllabically accepts 2,555 silver dollars – one for every day he was a captive plus one for luck, and a big red Cadillac, which is definitely not a phallic symbol, nope.

Also present is Linda (Linda Haynes; really good, actually) who has worn Rane’s ID bracelet throughout his imprisonment as a kind of symbolic gesture; returning the bracelet it’s obvious Linda will be trying to do something less symbolic with Rane given the opportunity. Although Rane’s virility has been besieged, in impotent white male revenge movies young women always find this astonishingly attractive; they are driven to seek to heal the male wound with their pliant young bodies. This in no way should be taken as a male wish fulfilment fantasy, obviously. Rane’s virility is further eroded when he returns home to find a bunch of uninvited redneck goons, who proceed to torture him in order to get his silver dollars. During this sequence there is a fantastically blatant symbolic castration, but Rane’s emasculation is not complete until his family return and the horror of civilian life finally exceeds that of Rane’s confinement. After that Rane’s on the vengeance trail and the therapeutic value of murdering low-life scumbags is once more attested to. (Note: whorehouse shootouts are not a therapy endorsed by the American Association of Psychiatrists).

Rolling Thunder is fucking bullshit obviously, but it’s a movie so that’s okay. In fact, it’s kind of the whole point. Catharsis isn’t just for horror flicks, you feel me? It’s well done bullshit though; supremely entertaining action antics. The cast are utterly committed, with Devane particularly fine at suggesting the violence beneath his placid exterior, Lee Jones ricocheting nicely between catatonic acceptance of normal life and puppyish enthusiasm for the opportunity to kill again, while  Linda Haynes makes far more of the part of Linda than it really deserves. Flynn’s direction is unfussy stuff and, far too many shots of shotgun smashed bottles in the hectic finale aside, he captures a butchly efficient Don Siegel vibe. Every now and again, through the melodrama and bloodshed, glimpses of a better, deeper movie surface. Particularly in the hilarious scene in which Rane visits Vohden at home; Vohden sitting like a golem in the midst of his family’s hellishly inconsequential jabbering. Rolling Thunder is a fun movie but it’s not to be mistaken for reality and it’s certainly not subtle. But then no one ever said “subtle as thunder” did they now?