Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

being a big fan of East Clintwood and Jeff Bridges, I wanted to see this early movie. It was great, only problem, the definition stinks, worse than VCR movies, so my flat screen made up for it by reducing the projected image on the screen by half. I have a 40 in. screen and ended up with a 30 inch picture, had I known that, I probably would have not ordered that DVD.

Seven years after a daring bank robbery involving an anti-tank gun used to blow open a vault, the robbery team temporarily puts aside their mutual suspicions to repeat the crime after they are unable to find the loot from the original heist, hidden behind a school chalkboard. The hardened artilleryman and his flippant, irresponsible young sidekick are the two wild cards in the deck of jokers. Written by {booda@datasync.com}

This 1974 caper movie manages the neat trick of both delivering what the audience wants and subverting their expectations at the same time. Clint Eastwood plays a crook on the run from ex-partners in crime George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis (often hysterically funny here) who teams up with Jeff Bridges' extrovert drifter to retrieve the loot from a previous robbery only to find his old accomplices tagging along and things - naturally - not going at all to plan. It's an almost perfectly judged mixture of comedy and action with both feet firmly on the ground in a way that would be almost unthinkable today. There's a real rapport between the outstanding cast and an affection for the characters that adds to the impact of the very Seventies ending. Writer-director Michael Cimino handles the mood swings adeptly and even injects a subtle undercurrent of sexual ambiguity that never gets in the way of the entertainment: this was a terrific movie in 1974, and if anything it's an even better one today. The transfer isn't great, but it is in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio.

A suprisingly touching and humorous movie that wrongly gets overlooked when people mention movies Clint Eastwoods has starred in. Although, it's Jeff Bridges who steals every scene and it seems Clint doesn't mind one bit. It's one of the few movies you can catch Eastwood crack a genuine smile, Jeff Bridges brings something fatherly out of Clint that is very sincere and real. The caper itself is beside the point, it's about these two misfits living day by day, and coping with life as its been dealt to them. A real pleasure.

The very first shot of "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" - a faultless composition, fifty per cent wispy Idaho sky, fifty per cent cornfield - establishes an elegant style which Cimino maintains throughout the film... The second scene - Clint Eastwood as we have never seen him before, wearing spectacles, his hair slicked back and dressed as a vicar delivering a sermon in a crowded country church - immediately makes one realize that the film may be quite different from any of Eastwood's previous ones... But the third scene, in which the vicar is chased across a seemingly endless cornfield by an irate gun-firing George Kennedy establishes that all is not as it seems to be...

Eastwood is rescued by Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges), who has just relieved a car salesman of $3000 dollars' worth of automobile, and a partnership is quickly created, with the veteran Thunderbolt asserting his experience and virility over the inexperienced Lightfoot... Casting off his vicar's clothes Thunderbolt then takes his belt and endures agonizing pain as he uses it to pull his dislocated shoulder into place...

Thunderbolt is being pursued by Red Leary (George Kennedy) and Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis) who are former partners of his in crime and who believe he has the half million dollar takings from their last bank raid... They mean business... While Thunderbolt and Lightfoot enjoy themselves with two young ladies named Gloria and Melody, Leary and Goody wait outside. 'Are you sure that's their car?' wonders Goody. 'That's their hearse,' says Leary...

The film was a triumphant debut for Cimino... His script combined wit and the naive philosophy of the motorized cowboys... 'Leary, I had a dream about you last night." "About what?" "I dreamt you said hello to me.'

At the beginning of the film when Eastwood recites his sermon for the benefit of his felonious friend, 'and the lion shall lie down with the leopard' (Cimino used it purposely to indicate the liaison between Lightfoot the lion and Thunderbolt the leopard), the younger man asks 'What's that - a poem?' 'No,' replies Thunderbolt, 'a prayer'. At the end of the film the younger man is still seeking answers from his senior partner... 'Where you heading?' 'See what's over the next mountain! We won, didn't we?' 'I guess we did - for the time being.'

Cimino created the part for Eastwood and in doing so drew greatly on his actual personality... For those people who know the real Clint Eastwood, no film part better conveys the style, the warmth, and the dry delivery of the man himself...