Rolling Thunder
Director: John Flynn
Year Released: 1977
Rating: 2.0
A Vietnam Vet (William Devane) comes home after seven years of being tortured in prison, only to find a bunch of truly idiotic thugs try to rob him of a box of coins worth about $2,000 (?) and murder his son (really? mess with a Vet? for that little amount of money?). Sordid revenge drama has misogynistic and racist overtones (women are either cheats, damaged or whores; all Mexican men are cruddy creeps and low-lives) and may not be exactly logical, but I must commend the final whorehouse shoot-out for its close approximation to a shootout from a Western: screenwriter Paul Schrader seems to insinuate that the United States/Mexico are just as (if not even more) "lawless" and violent as Vietnam. I'm the son of a Vietnam Vet and while I haven't been privileged much information about his involvement in the conflict, I will say this: never screw with those men no matter how worn out or old they get.
