Cinematic Nytroglycerine

"considering Death Wish gets all the headlines and is a pile of pig poo."

I have seen part of this movie, but it seems to be the same as most other Revenge action movies that Hollywood churns out.

Death Wish was realistic and I liked it for that.

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Definitely underrated, ROLLING THUNDER is one of the best 70s tough guy movies around and for me it's because of how understated it is.

The drama revolving around Devane and Jones coming home is so much better than the revenge aspects of the movie. They mesh up eventually as the characters are given a proper outlet to reach the necessarily boiling points to try and feel something after their POW experiences. But even the vengeance seems like a welcome escape from the routine. Look at how Devane interacts with the thieves when they first come at him in his house - the look on his face just seems like he's loving it, that he's able to fall back into the only routines he knows now - violence and torture.

I love movies where the characters don't pontificate on every little feeling that courses through their selves and when actors are instead allowed to say everything they need to say with their faces, actions or, in some cases, inactions. Devane never once spilling his guts about how he feels, if he indeed feels anything at all, about the murder of his family (he does only mention his son, not his wife) is what really separates ROLLING THUNDER from the boys. The scene at Tommy Lee Jones' family's house as the two former POWs suffer quitely through the banal living room conversation better captures in two minutes the hitting of the brick wall that is readjustment what most Viet Nam vet movies take two hours to do.

The direction is at times a little pedestrian, and I kind of wonder if Paul Schrader's original drafts are a little more hardcore, so to speak, than the finished product - but this is less a revenge story than a character study and given that, the performances, especially Devane, are superb. A great, overlooked flick.