Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

UPC: 027616810229

Studio: MGM

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Violence, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Adult Language]

Summary: As much an eccentric character study as a road movie, Michael Cimino's directorial debut follows the adventures of a quartet of misfits in their life of crime. Retired thief Thunderbolt (Clint Eastwood) and sweet drifter Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) meet cute when Thunderbolt jumps into Lightfoot's stolen car to escape a gunman. The pair embarks on an oddball journey to get Thunderbolt's loot from an old robbery before his former associates, the sadistic Red (George Kennedy) and cretinous Goody (Geoffrey Lewis), get to it first, but all four are too late; the one-room schoolhouse hiding place has apparently vanished. So instead, the four play house and work legit jobs while they plot to rob the same place Thunderbolt and Red hit before. Although the plan goes awry, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot discover that they may still have succeeded-or so they think. As the easy-going mediator between the two, Eastwood's Thunderbolt was a move away from his tough cop-westerner image; his audience accepted this then-atypical performance enough to turn Thunderbolt and Lightfoot into a moderate hit. Bridges received his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, but Cimino turned down a subsequent deal with Eastwood, moving instead to his artistic peak with The Deer Hunter (1978) and career nadir with Heaven's Gate (1980). ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Supporting Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Features: Collectible booklet
Original theatrical trailer

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Format: DVD

Release Date: 06/13/2000

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen

Audio: 1 USA & territories, Canada

Runtime: 105 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,Spanish

Subtitles: French,Spanish

Chapters: Side #1 --
0. Scene Selections
1. Logo/Title/Intro [3:42]
2. Wooden Leg,Lead Foot [2:09]
3. The Flying Priest [4:31]
4. No Country Creature [2:25]
5. Exchanging Cars [4:30]
6. Two Dumb Names [1:34]
7. Some Extra Goodies [3:31]
8. Ambush [5:53]
9. "In For A Penny..." [4:23]
10. An Animal Nut [4:39]
11. The Good Old Days [5:18]
12. Progress [2:35]
13. Counting Their Losses [5:06]
14. Lead A Horse To Water [3:14]
15. Not Much [1:20]
16. Men At Work [3:56]
17. Men At Play [:18]
18. A Little Information [2:16]
19. Lend Me Your Truck [2:11]
20. Shopping For Robbers [3:25]
21. The Ins And Outs [3:49]
22. Home Invasion [4:07]
23. A Man In Uniform [3:57]
24. A Drag Assignment [:59]
25. 11:35 P.M. [3:29]
26. Big Bang [3:27]
27. The Drive-In 'N' Out [2:41]
28. With Friends Like These [4:31]
29. End Of The Line [2:15]
30. One-Room Schoolhouse [4:04]
31. Over The Next Mountain [7:53]
32. End Credits [4:13]

Keith Phipps

An uneasy but ultimately quite rewarding mixture of dramatic and comedic elements, Michael Cimino's first film as a writer/director tempers its symbolic pretensions (it's the sort of film where the ordering of "American Fries" takes on a certain resonance) with a pleasing lightness. Borrowing heavily from other late-'60s/early-'70s songs of the open road (and explicitly referencing Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy), its pairing of Eastwood's burned out veteran of the Korean War with Bridges' easygoing, hippie-inspired drifter might seem far more heavy handed had other actors played the parts. "Sometimes when there's nothing to do, it's best just to keep movin'," Eastwood says at one point, and it's a tribute to his gravity that the words don't sound tired. It's an interesting twist on his persona that the film forces his character to be uneasy with -- and then extremely fond of -- Bridges' countercultural free spirit. But while Thunderbolt and Lightfoot can only be counted a modest success as another early '70s portrait of a vanishing America, helped considerably by Frank Stanley's striking cinematography and the film's Montana locations, it works even better as an oddball comedy. A scene of George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis uncomfortably sharing an unaccommodating ice cream serves as a highlight, and Cimino packs the film with such gags -- in fact, in retrospect, it seems an alternate career path as a comedy director might have served him better. Viewers who enjoy combing films for gay subtext will find plenty to work with here as well. ~ Keith Phipps, Rovi

Cast and Crew: June Fairchild  Actor 
Stuart Nisbet  Actor 
Erica Hagen  Actor 
Roy Jenson  Actor 
Luanne Roberts  Actor 
Virginia Baker  Actor 
Alvin Childress  Actor 
Karen Lamm  Actor 
Dub Taylor  Actor 
Gene Elman  Actor 
Gregory Walcott  Actor 
Burton Gilliam  Actor 
Leslie Oliver  Actor 
Mark Montgomery  Actor 
Vic Tayback  Actor 
Cliff Emmich  Actor 
Bill McKinney  Actor 
Jack Dodson  Actor 
Claudia Lennear  Actor 
Titos Vandis  Actor 
Dee Barton  Composer (Music Score) 
Michael Cimino  Director 
Michael Cimino  Screenwriter 
Robert Daley  Producer 
Clint Eastwood  Actor 
Jeff Bridges  Actor 
George Kennedy  Actor 
Geoffrey Lewis  Actor 
Catherine Bach  Actor 
Gary Busey  Actor 

Country: USA