Rolling Thunder

Directed by John Flynn

X

2 November 1977 1h 40mAction, Crime,

6.982%77%6.8

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Former POW, Major Charles Rane, comes back from the Vietnam war and is given a number of gifts from his hometown because he is a war hero. Some greedy thugs decide that they want to steal a number of silver dollars from him. In the process they also manage to kill his wife and son and destroy his hand. The Major wants revenge so he enlists the help of his war buddy Johnny to meet the thugs in a final showdown.

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Rolling Thunder Ratings & Reviews

Dan S Turpin22 February 2025
William Devane plays Major Charles Rane, a Vietnam POW who comes home to San Antonio after years of captivity. He receives a hero’s welcome, but the world he left behind has moved on without him. His wife is with another man. His son barely knows him. There is no place for him here, only the rituals of politeness that mask an unbridgeable distance. When a group of thugs comes looking for the reward money he was given upon his return, they destroy what little he has left, leaving him for dead and killing his family. From that moment on, Rane moves with the cold precision of a man who has nothing left to lose. Devane is remarkable here, his performance so restrained that it almost seems absent. He plays Rane as a man who has learned to suppress everything, to survive by shutting down all emotion. He speaks in a quiet monotone, his face a mask. But beneath that calm exterior, something is burning. Tommy Lee Jones, in one of his earliest roles, plays Rane’s war buddy, a man who barely speaks but understands everything without needing to. He doesn’t ask questions. When Rane tells him it’s time to go, he simply gets up, packs a bag, and follows. The way Jones underplays the role is what makes it so effective. He doesn’t perform. He simply exists in this world. Dabney Coleman has a small but memorable role, and the script, written by Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould, carries the same weight and focus as Schrader’s other work from this period. It understands that violence means something, that it isn’t just a tool for spectacle. Director John Flynn builds tension with patience, never rushing to the inevitable showdown but letting it come in its own time, with its own sense of finality. One of the film’s most surprising casting choices is James Best as the sadistic ringleader of the gang that destroys Rane’s life. Best is best known for playing the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard, a role so broad and comedic that it’s almost jarring to see him here as a cold, remorseless killer. There’s nothing cartoonish about him in Rolling Thunder—he’s pure menace, a man who doesn’t need to raise his voice to be terrifying. It’s a stark reminder of Best’s range as an actor, proving that long before he was chasing the Duke boys through Hazzard County, he was capable of playing real, unflinching evil. The climax, set in a seedy Mexican whorehouse, is swift and brutal. There’s no glory in it, no grand catharsis—just men doing what they have been trained to do, settling something that could never be settled any other way. And then, as quickly as it started, it’s over. Rolling Thunder doesn’t just work as a revenge film—it lingers as something more. It’s about the damage war does, not just to the body, but to the soul. It’s about men who come back home only to realize they never really left. And in its final, quiet moments, it leaves us with the feeling that no amount of vengeance will ever be enough.

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