Rolling Thunder
John Flynn’s “Rolling Thunder” is a movie that Quentin Tarantino loves. We don’t just know that because he wrote about it in Cinema Speculation or discussed it on a podcast; back in the ’90s, after “Pulp Fiction,” he created a label to release older films he loved, and he named it…Rolling Thunder. Even without those provable facts, however, when you watch the 1977 revenge drama, it would not surprise you to learn that he loves this film. It has great character actors as its stars, and a straightforward narrative and clear thematic goal it’s espousing.
After the Vietnam war, for about 15 years, filmmakers largely went away from WWII and tried to grapple with the aftermath of what happened in Southeast Asia, and what happened when those soldiers came home. Major Charles Rane (William Devane) is returning home after years of being a POW, and though his hometown has prepared a welcome home for him, life just isn’t the same. When his wife (Lisa Blake Richards) tells him that she’s been unfaithful, there’s no emotional blow ups- he’s just numb. His friend, Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones), is feeling the same, but he’s just going to re-enlist. It’s clear that people are glad he’s back, but it’s not until tragedy strikes his family that Charles unleashes some real, human emotion.
The screenplay is by Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould, inspired by Schrader’s original story. This is very much in the same vein of Schrader’s screenplay for “Taxi Driver,” except Rane’s disassociation with society isn’t a nihilistic sense of isolation, but a way of trying to cope with the pain of his imprisonment. Before PTSD was an idea we knew of as society, Rane’s character is displaying it, with his silence, the flashbacks we see, and the distance he puts between he and his wife and son. The only ones he really feels like he can connect with are Vohden and the Air Force psychiatrist, played by Dabney Coleman. The tragedy comes from a way the town is trying to show their admiration for him- he’s given a silver dollar for every day he was in captivity, and some border outlaws come to take it from him. He loses a hand in the garbage disposal, and his wife and son are killed. Once out of the hospital, it’s time for revenge. Joining him is Linda (Linda Haynes), a town woman who gave him the silver dollars (and one for good luck), and who has empathy for him.
When I say Linda “joins him” on his revenge trail, I mean she is basically used as bait for the people who took his wife and son from him. I do feel like there’s some recognition of her affection towards him, and that he does care for Linda (at least in terms of her keeping her life), but- as we learn- she’s a fellow traveler through life, as well, with not a lot to look forward to, and- even though she doesn’t condone what Rane is doing, deep down, we get the sense that she understands why he needs to do it. The only other person who really does is Johnny, who- when Rane comes knocking- goes forth with him, no questions asked. After all, neither of them are really able to feel like they can have a normal life anymore.
Flynn’s direction in “Rolling Thunder” is fairly pedestrian, and it doesn’t hit its strike until the second half of the film, but he understands the value of this story, and these characters. The fact that Rane has a stronger reaction to his family’s murder than he does to his wife’s infidelity says a lot about his character, and his love of his family. Devane and Jones are terrific in these roles, and Haynes’s performance makes for a compelling look at this character from the outside. The pacing is uneven, but I was still captivated the whole way, because its narrative is so pure in how it is laid out and executed. I see why it inspired QT so much.
