https://cinephiliabeyond.org/rolling-thunder-another-shattering-experience-from-the-author-of-taxi-driver/ Films and Filmmaking Thu, 07 Nov 2024 01:01:15 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://cinephiliabeyond.org/rolling-thunder-another-shattering-experience-from-the-author-of-taxi-driver/#comment-144 Fri, 13 Nov 2015 00:30:00 +0000 http://www.cinephiliabeyond.org/?p=19424#comment-144 The comparisons to Taxi Driver are apt, but another movie I am reminded of in Devane’s performance as the disaffected, grim LtCol Rane is The Deer Hunter. The events that lead to the bloodshed in the final act almost seem inevitable to the returned POW, another run of tragedy and violence that must be met with more violence. The other broken men he gathers together are similarly traumatized – all of them have been dehumanized by torture and, like many other combat veterans, are overcome by the guilt of having survived, where their friends didn’t. The protagonist doesn’t moralize or justify – he barely speaks. He is rescued from a jungle prison, but is soon lost again. Facing death head-on, under his own power, seems to be the only freedom left. Thankfully, Flynn & Schrader’s New Hollywood sensibilities deliver an ending that neither patronizes nor mollifies – another “movie that can’t be made today”.

]]> https://cinephiliabeyond.org/rolling-thunder-another-shattering-experience-from-the-author-of-taxi-driver/#comment-143 Thu, 12 Nov 2015 13:51:00 +0000 http://www.cinephiliabeyond.org/?p=19424#comment-143 Yet more great insights on great films. I wish Amazon Prime or Netflix would offer this film but, alas, they have chosen not to.

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