Word: thunderbolt
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT
...star is Clint Eastwood, and this looks, at first glance, like his usual action feature. He plays a professional heist artist nicknamed Thunderbolt, who is hiding out after a big job and falls in with a fast-talking kid (Jeff Bridges). They bump around Montana, pursued by two of Eastwood's cronies (George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis) who had a hand in the Montana Armored robbery a couple years back and are looking for their share of the take. The take, however, has vanished, along with the one-room pioneer schoolhouse in which it was stashed...
...best thing, likewise, about Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is its quality of going over familiar territory and coming up with things never quite expected. This is Director-Writer Michael Cimino's first film, and he demonstrates a scrupulously controlled style that lends sinew even to such usually dreary scenes as the preparations for the robbery and strategies of escape...
...feeling for the almost reflexive defenses of masculine camaraderie and for its excesses, with his eye and grudging affection for Western lowlife, Cimino has an obvious affinity for the work of Sam Peckinpah. What really animates Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, though, and makes it distinctive is its shellbursts of lunatic comedy. Thunderbolt and the kid hitch a ride with a crazy who has the exhaust pipe of the car channeled up into the back seat, a caged raccoon riding in the front seat, and a couple dozen rabbits stashed in the trunk. "What am I going to do with all these...
...Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The new Clint Eastwood, which should be enough to say. Except that the proper Gonzo approach to Eastwood--getting off on the savage and appalling vulgarity of it all--may be undermined by the appearance of Jeff Bridges, who has been known to act. One can be assured that Eastwood won't. Don't miss it. At the Savoy...