Midweek Mention... Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder

Cris: It's, I think it's penguin.

Oh this is very long.

Yeah, it was very long that

Dan: rolling in like thunder

Cris: It was, yeah.

Dan: And that is the name of the film that we will watch this week. I'd never seen this before. It was a bit of a random choice as it came up. And I, this, this actor

Reegs: william devane

Dan: William Devane, he's an actor that I've seen in a million films over the years.

Reegs: and tv

Dan: And TV, particularly TV, loads of him.

Normally plays a president or a political person. Has played underhand characters before, but I've never seen him as the main man quite so young in this as well. This is 1977, so that is another feature that drew me to it because it was actually the year I was born, believe it or not. I know. In fact, just going on that.

One of my wife's friends. I'd never met we saw her in town the other day and

Anyway, they're in a chat in town and she's with her husband and their kid or something and I'm with Yana And we walked back home and then today she said that a friend said all your husband's so young and handsome, isn't he?

I just thought I wanted to share that with you, because

Cris: I don't believe this. I think

Dan: Well, I found it hard to

Cris: find it hard to

Dan: Yana told me, and she really

Cris: she really doesn't Although, Dan, you see, that moisturizer actually

Dan: coming good, isn't it? It's you put enough of it on for long enough, and,

Cris: It works.

Dan: know, it's taking days

Cris: told you.

Dan: Days off me.

But that was good. Anyway, I don't know where I was But I just wanted to share that because I was quite

Reegs: Yeah, I can tell you look really

Dan: Really happy. Yeah

Reegs: Let's talk about this movie. I had also not seen of it. I was aware of it through Quentin Tarantino and his big love for this movie.

And I believe had a hand in it being distributed to a wider audience. Shall we get into it?

Dan: let's let's do

Cris: think so. Yes

Reegs: Well, we start with like a, it's a military parade basically. And at the same time a group of soldiers landing in an aircraft the, it's Tommy Lee Jones, a very young looking Tommy Lee Jones looking buff as hell.

Dan: Yeah. And he doesn't wanna be, he's on the plane with the vein Divine.

And with a few others, and they're, they're coming back from Vietnam. There's a huge procession at the airport and loads of people waiting. There's banners out there.

Reegs: And they're clearly not into it and it's not 100 percent sure why until, you know, a few minutes later they're going to tell us. But they, he tells him to put his sunglasses on.

Dan: Yeah, he

Reegs: it's the first time of many times that we're going to see sunglasses used to all, like, to hide their eyes and hide what they're

Dan: Yeah, yeah, it's You're right, they, they use that as a way in which to escape from the people that, Clearly think of them as heroes and think of them as you know, returning to, to home and everything now is great and brilliant because they're back home.

Whereas in fact, behind those glasses as some really tortured souls and people that have been clearly affected by the horrors of war and what they've gone through individually. And really not ready to readjust back into into life and

Reegs: yeah, cause we'll find out really quickly just as, as this procession is happening, you know, he Devane's character, our main guy, Charles rain is going to get off and shake hands with the guy and they're going to, you know, they're going to reveal to us that they were imprisoned in Hanoi and spent several years as prisoner of war there.

And, you know, this is their homecoming, this big party, this celebration for them all. And they, I think they say to him something like you know, How was your experience? He said, Oh, it made me a better man, made me a better American.

Dan: they have this procession, as I say, and on the tarmac, there's a few microphones.

They want him to say a word. These are famous POWs across America, particularly in in this town. And yeah, he's, he's, He doesn't want to give the negative side of war. He doesn't want to promote the fact that you know, he has been tortured bloody horrific experience and it's going to take him years to get over For him.

It's all very much the cover is on the sunglasses are on

And I will Give the party narrative and just say, yeah, well, I don't know about anybody else's experience, but it made me, as you say, a better man as we learn a little bit later on, it's changed him significantly. It's an argument whether he was a better man

Reegs: So at the end of this big um, procession uh, the, the guys who've been prisoner of war together, Tommy Lee Jones, particularly, and, and Devane's character, they're going to split up.

Tommy Lee Jones wife is going to greet him really enthusiastically, throw her arms around him, come and get him and take him off. And he looks really sort of nonplussed and very spaced out and very like, you know, uncomfortable with the situation. Of course he is,

Dan: think they've been away seven years or something like that, or five years, you know, a significant amount.

Cris: 200

and something days,

Dan: Yeah, it's a significant amount of time they've they've been away and a lot of that as prisoners of war.

Cris: 2050 2,554 days.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: So good chunk of time,

Dan: which is in fact 2,555, because that's how many silver dollars they end up getting presented.

Reegs: That's right. With

Dan: at a giveaway. They're given a Cadillac, I mean, they're really trying to welcome these people back. They're in full military stuff and they're turning up to open, you know, different.

Streets and things up and, and and just to be

Reegs: straight away, as soon as Devane goes home with his wife, she is like, here's Cliff. He drove me here. The

Dan: local, well, as soon as you saw Cliff on the tarmac, you thought Cliff's what? She's been hanging around with Cliff. Yeah.

Reegs: And the son is very circumspect and it's all presented to him like really quite matter of factly that she has been with another man, I think she phrases it while he's been away

Dan: she, she sat

Reegs: she's actually engaged to this guy, basically, she's still married to Charles rain, but she's kind of engaged and he just takes this news really stoically in bed, you know, he just wants to be that around for the, for his son who doesn't know who he is and has no attachment to him.

It's the terrible

Dan: he was probably about 18 months or less than two years old

Cris: Right,

Dan: left his son. So he doesn't remember his

Reegs: Yeah. So if it's supposed to be seven years, cause the kid's about 14.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, a little bit older, younger than that. But yeah, he's they've they might use a bit of Poetic license on the age of the kid so they can get the acting across but he does not remember his dad and He does remember.

Cliff who's hanging around and helping a lot and he calls him run He goes come on run you get in the car. Come on. Are you sort of how run come on like whatever? And He has to take all this news in, just coming back from Vietnam. His wife has said she's, she's honest with him and tells him early, but it's a lot to compute and it's a lot to take in the fact that all this craziness coming back, all these home comforts, he can get a beer and, you know, just sit down, but he's got basically no family life left now.

Reegs: No

Dan: completely.

Reegs: And he's still a creature of habit, so he's still like, he still makes his bed the same way as he did in prison. He still stays essentially in one room for,

Dan: Yeah, well he goes off into the garage to live, basically. And he's, yeah, he's on a put you up bed, an iron bed. He's clearly

still recovering from being at war.

Reegs: And actually Cliff will come to visit him in the garage to say,

Dan: And Cliff's okay?

Reegs: he says, what kind of man would I be if I didn't come to talk to you? You know, and it's already been this big thing about it. It wasn't meant to happen. It just kind of happened and you can understand and, you know, you can sympathize with how this relationship has happened.

And then there's this really menacing scene where he just. Turns it round on him basically. First of all, he asked him not to call his son a runt. He's pissed off about that. And then they get into this horrible reenactment of his torture in which he's like, he actually gets him to put his arms, Charles's arms behind his back.

As he would have been in that position. He explains how he survived. He learned to love the rope. He says you learn to love it and he gets him in a almost a position he's going to think he's going to break his arms. It's that

Dan: him in a, almost a position

Reegs: a really fucked up scene

Dan: thinks he's going to break his arms. It's a really fun

Reegs: yeah, but then the reality of it

Dan: reality is you don't really want to

Reegs: it's a bit real.

Dan: It is a bit real. And you realise this guy has Learned to love the rope so much.

He's almost missing the rope and I, you know, it's like a Torture that he's missing because he's just so used to it and he's been It's been ingrained in him over the last years and you get these little flashback moments of black and white Where he's he's clearly back in vietnam and he's being punched or whipped or beaten And it gives you little flashes of quite what You know, it was going on there.

Realize, yeah, he's been horrifically tortured. And he's come out the other side, but mentally he's, he's struggling with it all. So, following this he, he does go down to open up a, car dealership,

He's given a Cadillac. There's a beautiful young lady who's been wearing his tags and a little Bracelet for him and she returns that to him and says, you know, I've really kind of Been waiting to see you and hoping that you know,

Reegs: You know, I don't have any idea of any of these words

Dan: doesn't have any idea of any of these words because they've all come out since he's been away but he's being given these 2, 555 silver dollar pieces, which and it's all being videoed this and going out onto television and, and on the radio and everything because he's a celebrity. He's, he's like the guy

Reegs: returning hero as they positioned

Dan: and they didn't break him and he's, you know, he's, he's all this, that, and the other, yeah, he's American go, go, go.

So he's got all these you know, This money and when he gets home fast forward a day or two a group of bandits have obviously descended on his home thinking he's got a load of money and they know he's got 2, 500 silver coins. Coins which are worth X amount each and a Cadillac and all the rest of it And they just say I first of all in this scene.

I thought he knew them I thought these were people from his past that have come back. But in fact, they're not they're just Chances who have managed to find out where he lives

Reegs: Well, and also he's a load of money. He's so laconic and like such little expression, you know, he, he barely says a word, you know?

Dan: He comes in with the family and they just start beating up on him and say, where's the money?

Where's the money?

Reegs: It's really clear straight away he's not going to say where it is.

He's not, he just starts repeating his like rank, his name and rank and number like he would have

Dan: number that,

Reegs: And,

Dan: Even when they put his hand

in

a garbage disposal grinder thing

Cris: To

Dan: and mash all his hand up. They're not getting anything from him.

But then the kid says, no more, no more. Look, I'll tell you where it is. And he thinks, That's it. Like once now you've told him where it is. We've got no hope. You can see him

Reegs: Well that's why. Yeah. That's why

Dan: he didn't want to tell him. Cause he goes, that's all we've got. That's all they want. Once they've got the money, cause you start here and go, right.

I tell you what, I'll meet you down on the old road in El Paso. You do this, that and the other.

If they're saying all this. It's because this lot

Reegs: lot

aren't, aren't gonna be around to tell anyone.

Cris: no Yeah.

Dan: um, And sure enough they're all shot shot dead

Reegs: The wife and

Dan: wife and the kid and him all shot except he doesn't die. He's he's found in Alive, he goes to hospital

The the girl who had his baby Is at his bedside now.

She's taking him on as like the, you know, her own special case and and after a little while, we assume that he's, he's starting to heal and and the, the bullets didn't actually kill him, but he has to get around his head around the terms that his family is gone now. And

Reegs: motivations to do something because Cliff starts asking him, you know, what happened? Can you identify anyone? No, can't remember anything. And you're thinking that is not, you know, not the way with this guy. And it is not long in fact, before he has recuperated, he's had a quick chat to Tommy Lee Jones, who's completely directionless, I think has signed up for another tour or something.

It's the only life he

Dan: that's it his his buddy. Um From vietnam who Who I thought would have a bigger part in the, in the film, actually, Tommy Lee Jones. It's his,

Reegs: He's got a great part, to be fair, towards the

Dan: a great, yeah, he has, he has important in the film, but he hasn't been in it much up until this point.

Reegs: But as part of his recuperation and physical therapy, they give him a prosthetic claw hand thing, like in Bond, I guess.

Cris: Oh, right.

So he is not a hook, it's just like a,

Reegs: Well, it's part of this scene. At first, it's just a sort of grabbing mechanism, but after he's been released, he goes and he starts like, it's a sort of A team teaming up, gearing up moment where he saws the barrel off a shotgun and then sharpens the the thing into like a real

Dan: the hooks.

He's also been practicing putting cigarettes, picking up cigarettes with his claw hand and putting them in the pack. So he's, he's learning how to

Cris: to use it. Alright, okay.

Dan: With

this claw hand that he's got. Sharpened to a point. I mean, it's a killing tool now. Yeah. And and a gun in one hand and a, you know, a hook in the other.

Reegs: He goes and picks up Linda the girl that was sweet on him from the silver dollars and sort of says, Oh, come away with me.

You know, we'll go on holiday. We'll go to Mexico sort of thing. And she's like, Oh, that's okay. This could be okay. I'll get in the car with this guy and go. And this is where she

Dan: she's pretty directionless herself.

She's looking for something. She's looking for, for love. She's looking for some meaning in her life. She thinks he's a great guy. He's an important guy. He's, he's an

Cris: a hero. He's

Dan: guy.

Reegs: Well, also she's, she's desperately seeking validation from authority figures, right? Because her, she hated her mother. So she left and eloped and married young,

Dan: That's right, yeah.

Reegs: Then was a divorcee. 20 odd which would have made her basically a pariah and now she's nearly 30 like her life's over basically. And she's going to explain all this Anyway, so they go down to mexico and he's like i'll just go into this bar and ask for fat ed It it wasn't completely clear to me where the name fathead come from I don't think it was a real name was it it was just to try and make something happen

Dan: The, the kid and the wife and himself, they say, I'll meet you at Fat Eddie's with Fat Eddie's down on the old Perso Road. So he's listened to this information and he's got, like, one of them's called T Bird, one of them's called this, that and

Cris: called, guess that now, Texas,

Reegs: I've got the names here, because the Texan, T Bird, Melio, and Automatic Slim. Yeah,

Dan: that's it. So we've got these, we've got these four kind of bandits that are waiting around and he knows where they we're going after this job.

Reegs: So he sent this woman who is about five foot two, blonde, like weighs about six and a half stone into this like really dodgy bar asking for gangsters. And she is quite quickly accosted and taken into the back room. I think where Automatic Slim is going to turn up at some point, but some other guy is there first.

And then William Devane Rain is going to burst in. He's fucking stabs the guy's hand through the.

Yeah. Oh No, can show if you're a friend of Fat Eddie's,

Dan: He'll be and she's like no no not having this he yeah, he claws this guy's hand to the table.

And yeah, he goes we'll wear the rest of them and they're all fucking hell man. He's like, well this guy's goosed and I don't know if it's this one or the next guy because he's got to fight his way out He rips one guy from like his arsehole to his

ball

Reegs: ballsack. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh

Dan: back everybody he's back He's back one, but he goes with a tear doesn't he he goes with a And then, the car's running, he jumps in the back of it, they all chase after him, but they're away, and on to this town where the rest of these hoodlums can be found.

Reegs: Yeah.

Meanwhile, Cliff has got on the case, hasn't he? He's started piecing together some acts of violence that have happened, and that sort of thing, so

Dan: he doesn't really trust that he didn't remember anything. Though he's quizzed him about a few times and he's got great answers. He said, look, I lost my bloody hand. I can't remember anything.

Can't even remember how I lost my hand, let alone anything else. I was so sorry, you know, sorry, But yeah Cliff also has an understanding that this guy is likely to, to go solo on and, try to take out which is. Kind of how it ends up because he he goes down to Is it el

Reegs: He follows the trail of an abandoned car, isn't it? I think it is El Paso. But yeah, they, he does, he's, they, they trace his car that he's driven down there. And that's how he ends up down there. And he ends up, I think, encountering Automatic Slim and a couple of his goons.

There's a bit of cat and mouse through an abandoned warehouse type thing. And then he ends up getting shot. I think he takes a couple of them down.

Dan: Well cliff's found he's put an apb out on the red cadillac or something not to stop and detain but just to find out so When he knows where he's going that's him cliff follows down and he does he He's led to Lopez who is one of the kind of bandits and, and and he manages to, shoot him and kill him.

So, Cliff's doing a decent job there, but Yeah,

Reegs: and they do actually consummate their relationship. Don't they? And that's when you find out. Bit more about her back story. You also find out more about his psyche. He, he talks about they pulled whatever it was that hurts out of me. Now I don't hurt anymore. It's like so many bad ass lines.

Dan: left. He's just completely empty the torture Hasn't made him a man that can be loved

Reegs: he literally says, doesn't he?

When he's, she's singing a song and he says, oh, I remember that song from when I was alive. And, and he explains that means being before he was captured.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, he is. He's he's just dead behind the eyes.

You know, he's but

Reegs: anyway, he bangs her, leaves her in next morning he gets dressed in his full regalia, doesn't he?

Dan: And leaves her a chunk of money and you know that he ain't coming back that he's

Reegs: puts his sunglasses on,

Dan: put puts the sunglasses on and goes to to call up his mate.

Reegs: He goes to Tommy Lee Jones's house. They're having a chat about how everything's going to be replaced by Japanese equipment.

Everything's going to be

Dan: they all sat around the family having a nice family meal and everything, but it's, these two guys are just kind of looking at each

Reegs: Well, it's just amazing because he just says to him, I found the guys and he just says, I just, I'll get my equipment. That's all he says.

Dan: yeah, that's it. It takes nothing

Reegs: does. That's all

Cris: no more information

Reegs: more information. So badass.

Dan: to the closet, gets his guns, starts like, you know. This one's screwing short sawn off shotguns and, and rifle parts together and everything.

Reegs: Oh he's ready to put his life on the line.

Dan: yeah, he's ready. He can't wait to be honest, by the looks of him. He's, he's ready to go. He has not settled into C life either. Yeah.

Reegs: And it sets up the final act of the movie which is really this assault on a whorehouse They trail the guys to this one in juarez

Dan: Well, there is, there's the Texan, T Bird, and Melio are all out there, and these are the guys that have shot and killed his family, so, he's not gonna take any shit, and he doesn't. He just goes down with these two, they just burst in, don't they, and

Reegs: Well, he, first of all Tommy Lee Jones takes one of the prostitutes up to the room to smuggle some equipment in and then, yeah, he kind of breaks in.

He goes slowly, but before long, it's an absolute bloodbath including them. I mean, there's a big long shootout. Everybody takes hits. Eventually everybody dies. Automatic slims gone. The goons are gone and they kind of just carry each other out there like, you know,

Dan: That's it. Yeah, so he's taking a

Reegs: credits roll.

Dan: Tommy Lee Jones is taking a hit. And you think, well, are they going to be alright?

Is anybody

Reegs: Who knows? It's a bit of a butch cassy type. Are they gonna live? Who knows?

Dan: picks them up and they, they walk out. End of film, end of credits. So, assuming that they've got a, well they've got revenge. That's, that's 100 percent been done. They've killed everyone.

Cris: If they make it or not,

Dan: they make it or not, get arrested, all the rest of it.

Then who knows. But that was the end of it. It was, Yeah, quite a a strange film actually very 70s. Based it was gritty, you know, I mean

Reegs: Oh man, this was grimy and grim. This was like exploitation. I really like this. This

Dan: did yeah, yeah, oh good.

Reegs: banging this.

Dan: It was it was one of those films when I was watching it. I was thinking I was thinking how you guys are all gonna React to it actually because it it has you know You Clearly dated it. It is got some of, but I can see why someone like

Reegs: respond

Dan: drawn to it as well, just because it was so hard.

You know, it was just so like, as you say, grimy and, and it was, you know, the characters unflinching

Reegs: he's really put through the ringer, like some of the worst shit that you can imagine. And then, you know, so many cool action tropes in it as well. Yeah, I

Cris: Well, I, or the only thing I can say is I can't speak in the name of Saidi because obviously he's not here because he's not feeling well.

But I did see him this morning and I was, as you all know, on, on a weekend away. So I didn't manage to watch this movie, but when I asked him this morning, he said, I didn't, you didn't watch anything. I was like, well, after I finished work, I'll try to see if I can squeeze something in. He's like, if you watch anything, watch Rolling Thunder, because it's really

Reegs: Yeah, it is.

Dan: you know, it's themes of returning servicemen and everything and how difficult that would have been this back in 1977, not that far after, you

Cris: After the end of the war, yeah. After the

Dan: which went, you know, to mid seventies, there was still kind of, you know, there would have still been people actually fighting probably in Vietnam in some way, shape or form, even after this, or during this kind of film, then in that sense of things, I think it's quite

True and you know, it's a

Reegs: it's certain

prediction

Dan: of of how people you know, they're certainly not coming back

Reegs: Well, there's a lot

Dan: feeling great

Reegs: It's a lot of anger there. Right. And this was co-written by Paul Schrader of course. And you could see some of that taxi driver and stuff that came a bit later in this as well.

But I mean, like, it's not a coincidence that he's gone through these horrendous experiences and the worst things that happen to him are back in the USA. They make a big. point about how they didn't maim you out there. You're lucky you weren't maimed at all. And then as soon as he comes, he's only been back a week and he's had his fucking hand mangled, you know, and the odd relationship between the public and their heroes and all that stuff.

Great thematic content in here. I can see why, you

know.

Dan: Well, the, the, the violence was, was there, you know, plenty of shooting that, but it was Divine's kind of, emotional.

Baggage that he carried the whole film that was just clear to see That I think stole the film really and

Reegs: But most of it done with sunglasses like those big emotional moments are delivered behind these huge Ray Ban aviator sunglasses,

Dan: And and I say this he's just one of those actors that i've i've always found really compelling. You know, he just, he just seems to have a face and the mannerisms and, and a way about him that I, I've just always found interesting and he plays slimy characters really well. And this one, he wasn't slimy, but he was very sort of brooding and dark and yeah, pleased to watched it.

Reegs: Yeah strong recommend.

Cris: Yeah strong recommend