Rolling Thunder

With a script written by Paul Schrader, Rolling Thunder is an unlikely cut-and-paste job between a classic 70s meditation on damaged masculinity and a brutal Death Wish-style vigilante flick.

Returning home after eight years in a Vietnamese prison camp where he was tortured on a daily basis, Major Charles Rane (Devane) seems outwardly untouched. But the smiling passivity with which he recieves both his hero's welcome and his wife's request for a divorce begins to build a fascinating portrait of a man who has removed himself from the world of pain and feeling. But then an act of unspeakable violence is visited on him and his family, and suddenly the film shifts gears as Rane sets out to bring revenge to those responsible, a dish which he serves with cold fury and a sharpened prosthetic claw.

A grindhouse classic and one of Tarantino's favourite films, Rolling Thunder is a strange and uncomfortable ride. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]