Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Runtime: 115 minutes

Directed by: Michael Cimino

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis, several famous faces in small roles

From: United Artists

This is a certainly a 70’s movie; I won’t elaborate upon what I mean. What I will elaborate upon is that I was a fool for not checking this out years sooner. After all, it’s the debut film of a famous (or is that infamous?) director, stars a pair of great actors, has George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis in key supporting roles, and turned out to be even more emblematic of the decade than what I was expecting. The film is on the Criterion Channel only for the month of September and for once I didn’t wait until the very end to stream a movie.

Bridges (Lightfoot) steals a SWEET early 70’s Trans-Am and literally almost runs into Eastwood, who the viewer later discovers is named Thunderbolt for good reason. They develop a bromance as they are being chased by George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis. All I’ll reveal is that bank robberies are a plot point, the leading quartet are all a delight with their performances/how they interact w/ each other, and there are plenty of darkly humorous moments which worked for me.

For at least one reason, I was reminded of 1973’s Scarecrow-another film well worth seeing-as the opening was the characters randomly meeting each other, and their subsequent friendship. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot becoming buddies is really the crux of the film; various shenanigans happen but them hanging out is the focus. Various familiar faces appear in small roles: Catherine Bach, Gary Busey, Burton Gillam, Bill McKinney, Vic Tayback, Dub Taylor-but the focus is on the lead quartet, who are all superb.

Even the rural Montana setting is a standout; there’s plenty of lovely mountain scenery to gawk at along with the time spent in a city (Great Falls) or small towns. What a debut for Michael Cimino, who directed his own script. In an ideal world he would have directed more films like this but alas… it’s a relaxed yet always enthralling picture which also made me opine for Eastwood & Bridges doing more movies together.