Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Jeff Bridges and Clint Eastwood share a Zen moment.

Jeff Bridges and Clint Eastwood share a Zen moment.

(1974) Crime Comedy (United Artists) Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis, Catherine Bach, Gary Busey, Jack Dodson, Gene Elman, Burton Gilliam, Roy Jenson, Claudia Lennear, Bill McKinney, Vic Tayback, Dub Taylor, Gregory Walcott, Erica Hagen, Alvin Childress, Virginia Baker, Stuart Nisbet, Irene K. Cooper, Cliff Emmich, June Fairchild, Karen Lamm. Directed by Michael Cimino

Once a mainstay of Saturday afternoon television movie programming, this Clint Eastwood action thriller is notable for being Oscar nominated back in the day. All the digital splendor of a DVD doesn’t hide just how dated this movie is, though.

Notable as the first directorial effort of Michael (Heaven’s Gate) Cimino, the film concerns the pairing of a middle-aged, jaded bank robber now in hiding (Eastwood) and a young, impetuous and, er, highly vigorous young man named Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges, who garnered a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the role) who literally run into each other in a wheatfield while bullets whiz around them. That pretty much sets the tone for the movie.

They are being chased by Red Leary (Kennedy), a foul-tempered former member of the Thunderbolt gang (Thunderbolt is Eastwood’s character, by the way). Eventually, they all hook up and plan to duplicate the gang’s legendary heist of Montana Armored. But you just know that Lightfoot, so full of piss and vinegar, will get on stodgy old Red Leary’s nerves like stink on a two-dollar cigar, and that the fur will fly because of it.

The location in Great Falls, Montana, brings out the feeling of desolation and isolation that couldn’t be pulled off on a studio backlot. Cimino shows some decent writing skills with a few unexpected twists here and there, but mainly he borrows too heavily on a stylistic level from such movies as Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch and Easy Rider.

Eastwood is at the point of his career here where he was beginning to stretch his acting wings (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot immediately followed Play Misty For Me on Eastwood’s resume). Of course, the basics of his persona honed in so many badass Italian westerns are there, but the tough guy he plays here has a vulnerable, world-weary and dog-loyal soul beneath the veneer. Bridges was at the very start of his career which was somewhat checkered for awhile but has been awash with Oscar nominations and lately, Oscar wins. The supporting cast includes some of the era’s most solid character actors in Lewis, Tayback, Taylor and Dodson, while Bach is lustrous and Busey turns in one of his earlier performances.

Few movies age well, especially those that try to make a hipness quotient that generally eludes Hollywood movies. What’s hip in one era becomes hopelessly anachronistic in the next. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot has some meat on its bones, but generally speaking, holds up about as well as The Partridge Family does. Those who love ’70s movies or are students of the era however might find this a hoot.

WHY RENT THIS: Fine performances by Bridges and Eastwood. Very much a product of its times.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Extremely dated and doesn’t hold up well. Derivative of other, superior works.

FAMILY MATTERS: A bit of violence and sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Eastwood’s son Kyle had his first movie role in this film at age 5; because he had one word of dialogue, he had to be paid union scale for actors with dialogue rather than extras, which meant he got $128 (scale at the time) for his work.


BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $21.7M on a $4M production budget.


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