From: leeper@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (mark.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: THUNDERHEART
Date: 10 Apr 92 18:06:29 GMT
Organization: AT&T


				 THUNDERHEART
		       A film review by Mark R. Leeper

	  Capsule review:  Awful cliche-ridden script about a
     murder case on the Ogalala Sioux Indian Reservation.  Well-
     intentioned film has a good performance by Graham Greene (of
     DANCES WITH WOLVES), but don't trust the film's portrayal of
     Native American culture and don't expect to see a new plot.
     Rating: -1 (-4 to +4).

     Okay, now we all know the rules; let's go over them one more time.  On
one side we've got good guys, on the other we've got bad guys.  All the cute
people with personality on are the good guys' side.  Bad guys get to be
backed by the United States government.  Good guys get all the women and
children.  Bad guys get all the fancy guns.  Good guys get to fight for
their land, their homes, and principle.  Bad guys are fighting for money and
always get to strike first.  Nice looking woman.  Yeah, she's a good guy all
right.  Heck, bad guys are all men anyway.  She's lived here all her life.
No, wait.  She went away to school but she came back to help her people.
Yeah.  She's a doctor or a teacher or something that's got the right tone.
And she's *very politically committed*.  After all, this is the 1990s.  The
old woman who looks like a Cabbage Patch doll?  She's the doctor's mother.
Now you need someone for the audience to identify with.  He's the star, and
he's an American.  So naturally he comes in sort of on the bad guys' side.
But when he sees how nasty the bad guys are and how cute and good the good
guys are, he slowly changes sides.  He's attracted to the teacher.  Or did
we decide she was a doctor?  Anyway, through learning about the good guys by
being around them and through the magic of sexual tension, our hero slowly
figures out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.  Now who are the
good guys going to be?  Indians?  No, we did them with BROKEN ARROW.
Vietnamese?  THE UGLY AMERICAN!  Chinese?  THE SAND PEBBLES!  Salvadorans?
UNDER FIRE.  We've done Arabs AND Jews and blacks.  It's been done with the
Irish, but then it was the British government supplying the bullets.  Maybe
it's time for Indians again.

     Oh, heck, I know director Michael Apted's heart was in the right place,
but John Fusco's script was just awful.  Twenty-five years ago this would
have been a good script but it has been used, with variations, just too
often.  And the Indians who have been handed so many injustices deserve a
better story.  The motive for the murder that brings FBI man Ray Lavo
(played by Val Kilmer) to the Ogalala Sioux reservation is also one that has
been used too many times.  And for one more cheap shot, the film leaves
ambiguous if Indian magic might be working.  I thought that went out with
BILLY JACK.  Native Americans don't have any magic any more than anyone else
does.  I wish they did.  Maybe if they did, they could use it to get some
justice.  But Apted uses trick photography and staged scenes to imply you
really can see ghost dancers who disappear in a flash or to imply that a man
might have turned himself into a deer.  Indians are not great magical people
who live half in a spirit world.  They are just a group of ethnic peoples
who have been cheated and exploited and who desperately need a little bit of
justice.  Throwing them a bone by implying that their magic really breaks
the laws of physics is just not what they need.  If enough people confuse
compassion for American Indians with liking this film, Tri-Star Pictures
could make a bundle of money, almost none of which will go to help the
Indians.

     Some note should be made of Graham Greene's performance as a
reservation policeman.  His laconic performance is the most likable thing on
the screen.  And seeing his special Indian detection skills were certainly
of some interest.  Unfortunately, there is not enough of Greene to keep the
film afloat.  And for those who care, yes, there is a car chase to liven
things up.  I think that it is typical of Americans that after this whole
plot is so thoroughly worn out, they give it to the Indians.  I give
THUNDERHEART a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

					Mark R. Leeper
					att!mtgzy!leeper
					leeper@mtgzy.att.com
					Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper