Thunder and Lightning (1977)

Pretty Good

How sad is this?

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The only point that seems worth adding here is that the writer William Hjortsberg later wrote the screenplay for Angel Heart filmed by Alan Parker in 1978 with Robert De Niro and Mickey Rourke, based on Hjortsberg's novel Falling Angel.Aside from this and the aforementioned air boat race and gator-wrestling church it was pretty much business as usual for David Carradine and Kate Jackson at the time. I enjoyed it when it first came out, when there seemed to be car chase movies every week at the local flea pit (recently I was surprised to see just how few Carradine actually appeared in!)

One of the cable channels ran this the other day and I sat and watched it. For a B-movie, it's pretty good, although the plot kind of meanders around before working itself out. The dialog is stereotypical and goofy in places, too. But it's mostly an excuse for a batch of stunts, first with the boats in the swamp, then mostly featuring Harley's black '57 Chevy 4-door hardtop. The stunts sometimes stretch the limits of credibility - jumping from a parking garage to crash through the roof of a car dealer across the street, landing on the showroom floor and driving through the plate glass window, without a flat tire, without a cracked window, without a scratch - while not even wearing seat belts. Also, the same '57 Chevy that outruns a '69 or so Corvette, can't get away from a '59 Ford with a six-cylinder engine (could hear it in a couple places) earlier in the movie. From the looks of things they had some trouble with a few shots, I doubt they intended to smack the side of the Volkswagen Rabbit in the one scene (which must have been just about a brand new car at the time). Another scene cuts away from the car sliding trying to make a tight turn where the car catches the edge of the road and rolls over, I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to think he made the turn like normal (and they used the footage they had to avoid re-shooting and wrecking another car), or if I'm supposed to think he rolled the car and landed on the wheels and kept going.About the only thing missing was for Kirk and Spock to show up after Hunnicutt (Carmel) - Moonshine on the side of a legit soda bottling business is entirely within character for Harcourt Fenton Mudd. "Three to beam up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here!" In any case, for the guy who likes these types of movies, it's worth watching, it's not exactly art, but it was never intended to be. And it's worth reading through Carmel's IMDb bio page for another ironic twist to this film.

David Carradine, sporting an earring and a short, severely cropped coiffure which makes him resemble a rough trade Greenwhich Village gay leatherbar regular, is his customary lean, laconic, stoical, stubbornly nonconformist self as Harley, a fiercely independent and self-reliant moonshine runner who locks horns with fat, odious slimeball rival Hunnicutt (a broadly mugging hunk of overripe ham by Roger C. Carmel) over who has exclusive dibs on a lucrative Florida illegal whiskey business. Naturally, there are further complications; Harley's fretful, peevish'n'pettish steady girlfriend (comely brunette Kate Jackson, who looks like she just sashayed off the set of "Charlie's Angels") just happens to be Hunnicutt's firebrand daughter, two bickering, bumbling New York mafia hit men are trying to rub out Hunnicutt, and Harley has to intercept a shipment of poisonous rotgut before the driver makes a potentially lethal delivery. Directed with workmanlike efficiency by Corey Allen, bookended by a rousing air-boat chase at the beginning and a similarly stirring extended car chase in the last reel, with Andy Stein's sprightly bluegrass score and James Pergola's sunny, golden-hued cinematography adding additional spice to the already tasty mix, this affably lightweight drive-in item certainly hits the satisfying spot somethin' solid. Moreover, the dense, marshy Everglades swamp locations are suitably picturesque, the pace clips along at a speedy rate, there's a smattering of nudity, everybody talks with extremely thick'n'heavy drawling good ol' boy Southern accents, Pat Cranshaw and Sterling Holloway are very funny and engaging as a pair of amiable old fuddy dud moonshine makers, and late, great crime novelist Charles Willeford has a nice cameo as a shady, shifty bartender. Better still, the flick overall offers a cheery, good-natured, basically harmless and entertaining celebration of that quintessentially 70's grind-house anti-hero: the carefree, firmly individualistic and autonomous "I just wanna do my own thing" uncompromisingly free-spirited loner. Best scene: Carradine uses his patented martial arts prowess to beat the living tar out of scruffy, bellicose cracker Charles Napier, which prompts Napier to snarl the following deathless zinger: "Hey a**hole, knock off that kung fu s**t!" Fun stuff.

2 out of 10 Contrived good ol' boy, yahoo nonsense that is taken into overdrive. There really is no need to talk about the story since it is very derivative and just an excuse to put in a lot of smash up car chases. The filmmakers seem compelled to come up with every southern stereotype they can think of. There is the grizzled, uneducated, overall wearing, backwoods moonshiners. There is also the grubby, beer swilling, uneducated, pick up truck driving rednecks with names like Bubba and Scooter. Then there's the virtuous, but spunky southern daughter with a accent that is really annoying. There is even a scene where a couple of down home boys jump into a car and shout "yahoo!" as it takes off. It's all a very one dimensional, uninspired mess that makes you feel completely brain dead after about ten minutes. The production values aren't too good. The sound is muffled and there are too many quick cuts making some of the action hard to follow. The whole thing looks rushed and haphazard and simply done to cash in on the success of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. Carradine's performance is much too subdued. He seems to have no energy and is just mouthing his lines. Jackson is pretty, but her personality is much too strong. The only fun piece of casting is Holloway. He plays the main moonshiner and is probably best known as the voice of Winnie the Pooh. This was to be his last film appearance. The film has a few good moments that are worth mentioning. One is a unique speed boat chase done on a large swamp. There is a segment where a minister preaches his sermon while wrestling with a alligator. There are also hit men who like in PULP FICTION have unusual conversations. Some of the strange topics include too much violence on TV, Captain Kangaroo, and even Norman Vincent Peale. There is also one really good inside joke. Napier is having a fight with Carradine and yells out "Hey as----- knock off the Kung Fu sh--."