Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

A Tarantino flick two decades before they existed

A preacher (Clint Eastwood) with a past to hide is chased by a lunatic gunman (George Kennedy) in northern Montana. He inadvertently teams-up with a young scalawag (Jeff Daniels) and they concoct a mad heist with a couple of the formers old partners.

Written & directed by Michael Cimino, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) was the infamous directors debut and pulsates with cinematic magic from beginning to end. You can tell Tarantino was heavily influenced by it because it smacks of his flicks twenty years before he rose to fame with Pulp Fiction. It is a combination gangster/road/car flick à la Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) and Joyride (1977).

Someone s...

A hit-and-miss, if still probably good, 1974 film.

'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' fails as a comedy but actually does work as a road trip/heist movie, even with a surprisingly sombre ending. To further the mixed bag feeling, I found the acting talent to be just that.

I'd say this is one of Clint Eastwood's weakest performances, though Jeff Bridges has a lot of fun and is the standout in his role. George Kennedy is closely behind him and ahead of Eastwood, in my opinion.

The film attempts a lot, I'm not convinced it all works, but I'd recommend it - the pacing is on point, so it doesn't drag.

"Thunderbolt" (Clint Eastwood) makes a living posing as a priest in backwater chapels when he is rumbled by a man who knows who he really is. By pure chance, he makes good his escape by climbing into the car of a passing motorist, whom he quickly nicknames "Lightfoot" (Jeff Bridges). This younger man is captivated by the excitement of his new best pal, and with the two of them actually getting on quite well they are soon treading a fine line between the legal and the not so! Meantime, hot on their trail is the menacing "Leary" (George Kennedy) and his goofy pal "Eddie" (Geoffrey Lewis). Why are they so persistent? Well it turns out that "Thunderbolt" had been part of an armed robbery that had netted half a million dollars. The cops had clai...