Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Plot synopsis:
As a young ne'er-do-well named Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) steals a car, an assassin attempts to shoot a preacher delivering a sermon at his pulpit. The preacher escapes on foot. Lightfoot, who happens to be driving by, inadvertently rescues him by running over his pursuer and giving the preacher a lift.
Lightfoot eventually learns that the "minister" is really a notorious bank robber known as "The Thunderbolt" (Clint Eastwood) for his use of a 20 millimeter cannon to break into a safe. Hiding out in the guise of a clergyman following the robbery of a Montana bank, Thunderbolt is the only member of his old gang who knows where the loot is hidden.
After escaping another attempt on his life by two other men, Thunderbolt tells Lightfoot that the ones trying to kill him are members of his gang who mistakenly thought Thunderbolt had double-crossed them. He and Lightfoot journey to Warsaw, Montana to retrieve the money hidden in an old one-room schoolhouse. They discover the schoolhouse has been replaced by a brand-new school standing in its place.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are abducted by the men who were shooting at them—the vicious Red Leary (George Kennedy) and the gentle Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis)—and driven to a remote location where Thunderbolt and Red fight each other, after which Thunderbolt explains how he never betrayed the gang.
Lightfoot proposes another heist—robbing the same company as before—with a variation on the original plan, since Lightfoot inadvertently killed their electronics expert, Dunlap, in his rescue of the fleeing preacher. In the city where the bank is located, the men find jobs to raise money for needed equipment while they plan the heist.
The robbery begins as Thunderbolt and Red gain access to the building. Lightfoot, dressed as a woman, distracts the Western Union office's security guard, deactivates the ensuing alarm, and is picked up by Goody. Using an anti-tank cannon to breach the vault's wall, as they did in the first heist, the gang escapes with the loot. They flee in the car, with Red and Goody in the trunk, to a nearby drive-in movie in progress. Upon seeing a shirt tail protruding from the car's trunk lid (which is a strong indication one or more people are hiding in the trunk to avoid paying), the suspicious theater manager calls the police and a chase ensues. Goody is shot and Red throws him out of the trunk onto a dirt road, where he dies.
Red then forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to stop the car. He pistol-whips them both, knocking them unconscious, and kicks Lightfoot violently in the head. Red takes off with the loot in the getaway car but is again pursued by police, who shoot Red several times, causing him to lose control of the car and crash through the window of a department store, where he is attacked and killed by the store's vicious watchdogs.
Escaping on foot, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot hitch a ride the next morning and are dropped off near Warsaw, Montana, where they stumble upon the one-room schoolhouse—now a historical monument on the side of a highway—moved there from its original location in Warsaw after the first heist. As the two men retrieve the stolen money, Lightfoot's behavior becomes erratic as a result of the beating.
Thunderbolt buys a new Cadillac convertible with cash, something Lightfoot said he had always wanted to do, and picks up his waiting partner, who is gradually losing control of the left side of his body. As they drive away celebrating their success with cigars, Lightfoot, in obvious distress, tells Thunderbolt in a slurred voice how proud he is of their 'accomplishments', and slumps over dead.
Thunderbolt snaps his cigar in half (as it is no longer a celebration), and with his dead partner beside him, he drives off down the highway into the distance.

Tags: violence, comedy

Review:
Lightfoot (a superlative Jeff Bridges) has a crush on Thunderbolt (an astonishing Clint Eastwood) at first sight.
Michael Cimino's first film is an arresting fusion of early 70's road movie, 'Buddy' picture and 'planning a heist' action-thriller.
We get a real sense of his character's connection to Bridges which makes the 'Midnight Cowboy'-ish ending genuinely moving.Like all the great 70's movies, it has some wonderfully memorable scenes and dialogue: Dub Taylor ranting about the imminent collapse of the American economy at a nocturnal gas station; Bill Mckinney as a crazed speed-freak with a trunk full of white rabbits; Bridges encountering a hammer-wielding female motorcyclist, etc, etc.Throw in some breath-taking scenic photography of Montana by Frank Stanley (prefiguring the use and role of landscape in relation to character later explored by Cimino in 'The Deer Hunter') and some beautifully understated character work in the smaller roles, and you have a fondly remembered minor classic ripe for some serious re-appraisal..
This is mostly due to Cimino's script and Bridges acting and honest words.This is far more than a buddy picture,rather one of the greatest love stories on film(all homosexual connotations aside),taking the male relationship in film to new levels because of the contrast of characters and there immediate like for one another.Skipped is most of the bickering used in lessor buddy flicks instead great interaction between the two and Clint still gets to shine as one of the coolest tough guys of the 70's.Great cinematography coupled with beautiful backdrops and a fine supporting cast make this a must see..
Michael Cimino, who co-wrote the ecological SF sleeper 'Silent Running', and wrote the first (and best) movie in Eastwood's 'Dirty Harry' series, debuts impressively as director here.
Eastwood himself is very good as enigmatic thief Thunderbolt, even better is Jeff Bridges who steals the movie as his young protege Lightfoot.
The plot eventually comes together with a robbery involving the two and character actors George Kennedy ('Cool Hand Luke' and Eastwood regular Geoffrey Lewis ('The Way Of The Gun').
There's no way I'm going to argue that 'Thunderbolt And Lightfoot' is a forgotten classic, but it is a lot of fun to watch, it is unpredictable and interesting and features some fine performances, and that is a lot more than you can say for most subsequent Hollywood movies of this type.
If wanted, one can consider this little gem as one of his first steps at "auteurism" (I know, this theory is aged, but not completely wrong).Eastwood certainly did take this movie serious as did Bridges, whose fifth important picture this is (after Last Picture Show, Fat City, Bad Company and Last American Hero).
The same goes for Eastwood-extra Geoff Lewis (still active today in US TV) and Gary Busey, who spends his time today in grade E action-schlock.In addition to this perfect cast and the direction, which I would describe as one full of "lazy assurance" (although by a newcomer) we have a well balanced, highly entertaining story with superbly drawn characters (the movie is evenly balanced and to equal parts plot- and character-driven).
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)Plot In A Paragraph: A bank robber (Eastwood) gets his old gang back together, to organize a daring new heist, with the help of a young sidekick (A brilliant Jeff Bridges)This is one of my favourite Clint movies that isn't a western or a Dirty Harry movie.
Thunderbolt & Lightfoot might just be the second best film in both  Eastwood & Bridge's career.
Doherty (Eastwood), an ex con / bank robber is by fate, recklessly  aided by Lightfoot (Bridges) helping Doherty make a sharp exit from his  former criminal associates (played by G Kennedy & G Busey).
Jeff Bridges is a remarkable and funny actor in this film, his part  reveals a warm and naïve handsome young fella, yet somehow edged with  that wise-fool-20-something vision that provides infectious viewing,  especially the line to Clint "I don't know want your money man.
most people remember Michael Cimino for his classic masterpiece the DeerHunter,, this film while not quite that is very close i think to a cult classic,, Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges work so well together,, add in Geoffrey Lewis,, George Kennedy,, small parts for Catherine Bach Vic Tayback , and Gary Busey, plus a great story,, and music, you have a wonderful film to behold,, Johnny is on the run from Red,, from a job he pulled 10 years ago,, Red tries to kill him but with Lightfoot's help Johnny lives another day,, he then convinces Johnny to pull the exact same job as 10 years ago, because they would never expect it..
I really like this movie, and I believe Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are one of the better movies with Clint Eastwood, and he really make a great pair with Jeff Bridges.
The location where Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is filmed are wonderful, the casting is perfect, good plot, great theme song in the beginning and at the end of the film, add this together and you have a really good movie!
Cimino keeps the story simple, funny and pretty involving: A young hotshot (Bridges) inspires a has-been bank robber (Eastwood) to take another crack at the bank which nearly brought him down the last time he hit it, and along the way they are both sabotaged and helped by Eastwood's former buddies (Kennedy and Lewis).In my humble opinion, Jeff Bridges is ace as "Lightfoot" in this movie.
Along the way, the violence and mayhem that made Eastwood leave it all back then catches up with them and they have to fight for their lives.The movie is a must-see for fans of Eastwood, Cimino, Kennedy and Lewis - but it belongs to Jeff Bridges..
See the movie...you'll see what I mean!Also, according to IMDB Clint Eastwood felt he deserved an Oscar nomination since his co-star, Jeff Bridges, received one.
Sterling cast (Clint Eastwood, Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, and Gary Busey--billed as Garey) keeps it afloat, and the final twist is clever.
It's too relaxed and laid-back to be considered a successful action picture, yet the story is also too thin and too vapid for us to take the movie very seriously.The movie does have great star power, and Bridges' performance is outstanding, but the meandering script takes too much time to get moving and the direction has no energy, no zest..
Excellent script from infamous Michael Cimino and with fantastic beautiful and memorable photography THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT is still a great film to watch.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot casts Clint Eastwood as a former bank robber now turned preacher who is trying to escape from his former gang who think he sold them out.
Eastwood himself says to Bridges that he came along about ten years too late in his life.Michael Cimino was acclaimed for his first film as both director and writer.
Cimino's script doesn't explain and I don't think it's on the cutting room floor because the film as a whole is well and tightly edited.Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is one of Clint Eastwood's best films, certainly one of my favorites.
Part road trip movie, part Heist movie "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" brings together Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges.
Geoffrey Lewis (Goody) and George Kennedy (Red) join Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to set the record straight and do the job that didn't get finished off properly last time.
Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges made a good film with "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot." Both actors compliment each other as the personalities of their respective characters are totally different but are united in the pursuit of crime.
(Why would he be preaching in a little country church if he had half a million dollars?) Running from Red, Thunderbolt runs into Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) - a small timer who'd like to pull off something bigger.
An excellent character based comedy / drama, "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" is a well above average 1970s vehicle for established star Clint Eastwood.
Cimino gives his film great pace, and, in collaboration with cinematographer Frank Stanley, gives "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" some impressive widescreen compositions.Endearing entertainment all the way, further enhanced by Paul Williams's touching song "Where Does a Fool Go".Nine out of 10..
I love the title song by Paul Williams which is just a different way of telling the story of John "Thunderbolt" Doherty story, notice how the young Lightfoot act like a sort of guide through the movie.
The actors are extremely good, Eastwood of course show his usual two expressions, but they do fit the role, George Kennedy is very good, but above everyone is Bridges, I love is performance, I think he is just a great actor, and he have been since the beginning, and he is at his best here.
Before "The Deer Hunter" and "Heaven's Gate," Michael Cimino wrote and directed this unsung Clint Eastwood heist film that is less an action movie than a satiric play on one.
Eastwood and Jeff Bridges (an Oscar nominee for best supporting actor) have a vaguely homosexual relationship which itself makes this unusual, and it is the delightfully offbeat characters, rather than the action, that make this such a winner.
He inadvertently teams-up with a young scalawag (Jeff Bridges) and they concoct a mad heist with a couple of the former's old partners.Written & directed by Michael Cimino, "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (1974) was the infamous director's debut and pulsates with cinematic magic from beginning to end.
Actors Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges are this film's friends in question.
It is also A film about it's characters who are played wonderfully by a grade A cast starring Clint Eastwood as the laconic loner, also starring Jeff Bridges who gives A wonderful Oscar nominated performance as Lightfoot, with wonderful supporting actors George Kennedy as the violent and menacing red Leary, and also Gregory Lewis as Eddie Goody.
Clint Eastwood & Jeff Bridges star in this peculiar crime/road picture as they portray a veteran crook/thief and his willing/free-spirited young partner who reunite with Clint's(Thunderbolt) old partners(George Kennedy & Geoffrey Lewis) to finish a heist job they had committed seven years earlier, but were unable to collect the loot.
A lot of the humour of the film comes from Bridges antagonistic interaction with the character played by George Kennedy, who is the obvious villain of the piece.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot plays it's crowd-pleasing elements - things such as comedy, action and strong performances from good leading men, as far as they can go and this is what makes the film a winner.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot plays it's crowd-pleasing elements - things such as comedy, action and strong performances from good leading men, as far as they can go and this is what makes the film a winner.
And this is testament to the great characters and crowd pleasing elements that this film gives it's audience.Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges really couldn't be much more different if they tried.
And this is testament to the great characters and crowd pleasing elements that this film gives it's audience.Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges really couldn't be much more different if they tried.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is both a buddy movie and a character driven crime caper, and it plays both of these sides of it's personality to great effect.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is both a buddy movie and a character driven crime caper, and it plays both of these sides of it's personality to great effect.
Here is a work over-looked in the much maligned career of Michael Cimino, though also for actors Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges.
I loved how the basic premise- Eastwood leading Bridges, and two others (one George Kennedy in a well-fit villain-type tole) to rob an Armory in a small Montana town after a botched attempt- keeps getting put aside for more of the 'little' things that they come across.
Or early on in the scenes establishing Thunderbolt and Lightfoot- somehow it's weird to see how these people would meet, but they're together, and a strange fit.The film isn't great, however the aspirations of what would come in Cimino's later films (for better or likely for worse) are seen here in good light.
At the heart of the film is the friendship between Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges).
Interesting in that it stars Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, and is probably the only movie to include both of them.
Jeff Bridges is great as Lightfoot and Clint Eastwood is solid, and very Eastwoodesque, as Thunderbolt.
It starts out slow where Eastwood's and Bridge's characters first meet and form a rapport.George Kennedy and Geoffery Lewis join in on the caper, and all 4 actors complement one another nicely in a unique way.
And Geoffery Lewis was the bumbling, harmless lackey who provides some comedy relief.Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is kind of a feel-good buddy film and action-adventure rolled into one.
it stars Clint Eastwood as vetern bank robber John "Thunderbolt" lured back into the criminal world with a new sidekick, Jeff Bridges as Lightfoot.
With Clint Eastwood's fighting, Jeff Bridges' humor, and George Kennedy's evil streak, 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' features smart action, fun, and an unforgetable sad ending that everyone will love.
I don´t know why Jeff Bridges and Clint Eastwood only made two movies together; the two partner up very well.
Rarely seen on (at least) UK TV schedules, I was pleased to re-new my acquaintance with it, recognising it for the first time as being written and directed by "Badlands" director Michael Cimino.A combination buddy/caper/road movie it starts very quietly with a car in the distance carving out a plume of dust as it approaches a country church whereupon it explodes into life with the car's driver entering the church, brandishing a shotgun and taking potshots at the preacher, a rather improbable Clint Eastwood ("Thunderbolt" from the title).
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is the first film directed by Michael Cimino.
I wouldn't recommend this film toanyone, even if they love Clint Eastwood or Jeff Bridges..
Michael Cimino's 1974 Crticial & Commercial Hit 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' is A Fantastic Film, along-with an Astonishing Performance by Academy-Award-Winning, Legendary Actor, Jeff Bridges!
Cimino's strong direction, combined with two very charismatic leads (Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges) and a solid script makes it an entertaining way to spend two hours.
THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT (1974) *** Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis, Gary Busey.
Clint Eastwood is a career bank robber (Thunderbolt) who teams up with a novice played by Jeff Bridges (Lightfoot) to get the money hidden from a previous robbery.
Anyway, Cimino made his directorial debut with "Thunderbolt & Lightfoot." This exciting, tour-de-force Clint Eastwood & Jeff Bridges thriller ranks as one of the top ten perfect crimes heist movies of the 1970s.
Cimino's film chronicles the friendship between an older man, a Korean War veteran on-the-lam, and a hopelessly footloose but fast-talking twentysomething who cherishes grand theft auto, easy women, and clichés.Ultimately, Joe Doherty, aka 'Thunderbolt' (Clint Eastwood) and Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) team up reluctantly with Eastwood's old partners-in-crime, Red Leary (George Kennedy of "Cool Hand Luke") and Goody (Geoffrey Lewis of "High Plains Drifter") to rob an armored car company.
There is the talent involved, Eastwood in his prime, Jeff Bridges laying out the kind of persona he would riff on for the next thirty years, George Kennedy in full blown red neck psycho mode, and Michael Cimino working on the friendship/futility of life themes that would then be refined in the masterpiece that is Deer Hunter.
Preparations are in order to rob Montana Armoured when a young goof-ball roadie named Lightfoot(Jeff Bridges, nothing short of amazing)convinces ex-bank robber Thunderbolt(Clint Eastwood, very mellow and pleasant in this particular film)and his ex-heister partners(Geoffrey Lewis as Goody & George Kennedy as the extremely volatile Red Leary..who originally plan to kill Thunderbolt believing he hid the loot they stole from that very bank of Montana Armoured ten years prior)to attempt the daring feat of working over a bank twice.
All the cast are good even though Clint Eastwood is basically playing himself but it's impossible to mention the cast without mentioning that this is Jeff Bridges film .
This is a film which is heavy on the character work and the humour, with oddball but likeable performances from the likes of Jeff Bridges, Geoffrey Lewis, Gary Busey and George Kennedy.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot came up and the catchy name combined with Clint Eastwood and Bridges beckoned.This is a good character building movie.
"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" was Michael Cimino's first film as a director and to me it is one of the best heist movies that I have ever seen and perhaps the most entertaining movies of the genre.
The movie stars Clint Eastwood as a bank robber named Thunderbolt who in the first scene we believe to be a preacher but his mass gets interrupted when shots get fired and he ends up escaping the scene, after the shooting he ends up meeting a young man named Lightfoot (played by Jeff Bridges in an Oscar nominated performance) and start a friendship with one another and they are on their way to Warsaw, Montana to look for a one room schoolhouse for some money that hasn't been found, and they end up going to the wrong school whilst assuming that the one room schoolhouse was torn down while getting some ice cream.
Gordon Green expresses his love for Michael Cimino's debut feature; "I'm obsessed with this actor (Bill Mckinney) from THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT, he has an amazing role where he picks up Jeff Bridges and Clint Eastwood and he's got the raccoons in the car and the bunnies in the trunk.
THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT is a sort-of mix of many elements – it's a road movie that becomes a heist one, and that's always a buddy film, all with some folk music.
Teaming up with young con-artist Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) Thunderbolt re-unites with former members of his gang Red Leary (George Kennedy) and Eddie Goody (Geoffry Lewis).