Reeling Backward: "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot"

Clint Eastwood planned to direct "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" himself, but then he met Michael Cimino, the young screenwriter who had written the script for "Magnum Force," the second Dirty Harry movie and a big hit.

Road pictures and Eastwood were both hot commodities in the early 1970s, and Cimino had been commissioned by agent Stan Kamen to do a script on spec with the squinty star in mind.

Eastwood, who'd already directed three movies himself by then, decided to let Cimino have his shot, leading to his first feature film as a director. His second movie behind the camera was "The Deer Hunter," winning him a pair of Oscars by the age of 40. His next was "Heaven's Gate," which ended his brief tenure as an A-list filmmaker. He made four more movies, none of them consequential.

I'd been meaning to see this buddy crime caper for years, and came away a teeny bit disappointed. It's now out in a handsome Blu-ray edition that's well worth a look.

It's a fine movie, and the screen relationship between Eastwood and Jeff Bridges is just as lovely and spirited as I'd hoped. Or at least it starts out promising.

Eastwood is Thunderbolt, an expert in breaking into banks vaults using a 20mm cannon, hence the nickname. As the story opens he's been hiding out as a preacher in a tiny unnamed town in Big Sky country.

Bridges is Lightfoot, a young hotshot car thief/rapscallion, who wandered off on his own as a youth and never stopped moving. He's repeatedly referred to as a hippie, though his clothing and hair is actually closer to Tony Manero from "Saturday Night Fever." He steals, has a good time with women and booze until the money runs out, then repeats the cycle.

Somehow these opposing personalities just click. Thunderbolt is an aging Korean War vet whose body is crisscrossed with scars, including a badly burned foot that requires a walking brace. He keeps to himself and speaks only when necessary, won't run from a fight but doesn't seek one out, either. Lightfoot is a gadly and gadabout who loves to laugh and avoid conflict whenever possible.

They meet when Thunderbolt literally jumps into the hot rod Lightfoot has just stolen while being shot at by a former member of his bank robbing gang. They pulled off a big job at the Montana Armory a couple of years earlier, and events transpired that the others mistakenly think Thunderbolt kept all the loot for himself.

(They never seem to question why 1) if Thunderbolt had the money he'd pretend to be a poor podunk pastor instead of living the high life behind guarded walls, and 2) they should just just kill him instead of trying to get the money back.)

Lightfoot almost immediately suggests they become friends and pull off some jobs together. Thunderbolt enjoys the younger man's innocence and pep. It's the start of a great Butch/Sundance type of partnership, and I looked forward to accompanying them on their bromance journey.

Unfortunately, the duo becomes a quartet and the movie morphs into a fairly straightforward heist flick, as they plan the job and then watch everything blow up in their faces.

I'm sort of astonished that "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" is often described as a comedy. Certainly there are hijinx and laugh-out-loud moments. But it's also a movie with sadness and anger at its core.

The latter is personified in Red Leary, a thoroughly nasty piece of work played by George Kennedy. He's the one who wants to assassinate Thunderbolt for pure sake of revenge. They were friends from back in Korea, and each man claims the other saved his life.

At one point Red is asked why he's willing to sacrifice everything instead of just letting go and living his own life, and he responds that because he was (he thought) betrayed by a friend, no other choice was possible. If a stranger did him wrong, he'd probably let it slide if there was no benefit in pursuing retribution.

Red and Thunderbolt hash out their differences in a fistfight, then resolve to rejoin forces along with Goody (Geoffrey Lewis), their submissive wheel man. Lightfoot replaces Dunlop (Roy Jensen), the electronics expert who tried to kill Thunderbolt in the opening sequence and got busted up for his trouble.

It seems the one-room schoolhouse where Thunderbolt and the deceased gang leader stashed the loot was torn down and replaced with a modern building, meaning they have nothing to show for the biggest score of their lives. It's Lightfoot who suggests they pull the same job all over again using the same M.O.

Red takes an instant dislike to Lightfoot, egged on by the latter's teasing and devil-may-care attitude, and threatens repeatedly to do him in when the job is over.

At this point the movie wandered away from me, as the men take jobs in town so they can build a stake while planning the robbery. A few notable actors make appearances here including Gary Busey, Vic Tayback, Jack Dodson, Dub Taylor and "dem teef" background player Burton Gilliam. Catherine Bach turns up as a romantic fling for Lightfoot in a pre-"Dukes of Hazzard" role.

The fatal flaw that trips up the execution of the heist is sneaking into a drive-in movie theater near the armory with Goody and Red hiding in the trunk. The manager spots Red's shirttail hanging out the back and thinks extra people are sneaking in without tickets, setting off the commotion that puts the cops on their tail.

For veteran cons you'd think they'd instead try to get away from the scene of the crime as fast as they can. Or just have Goody and Red sit up front and buy two more tickets. But maybe it worked last time, so they're slaves to the tried-and-true.

"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" is a notable car movie. Lightfoot repeatedly "acquires" new vehicles to throw people off their trail, so the movie has a hefty listing on the Internet Movie Cars Database. Dunlop rolls up in a black 1959 Cadillac, a model I'm well acquainted with, and things go from there.

At various points the boys drive a '73 Buick Riviera as well as a Pontiac Firebird and a Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado, both of the same year.

In the film's looniest sequence, the pair are hitchhiking and get picked up by a madman driving a 1973 Plymouth Fury that has been jacked up with racing tires, who immediately careens around the road like a stuntman and intentionally rolls the car over. He then springs the trunk revealing that it is filled to the brim with white rabbits. He's played by Bill McKinney, forever the "squeal like a pig" hillbilly from "Deliverance."

It's a fun bit, but it's bizarreness for its own sake.

The most memorable car of the story is Goody's slate gray 1951 Mercury Coupe, which we suspect has been souped up by the way it keeps up with all the modern cars. It gets put through all sorts of paces, including jumps off cliffs and smashing into multiple police cars during the last desperate chase scene.

The film ends on a major downer note, with everyone in the gang dead but Thunderbolt. Red made good on his promise, repeatedly kicking Lightfoot in the head to cause fatal brain damage. Goody gets shot through the trunk lid and Red is mauled by a guard dog at the store he crashes into, ironically the same place he'd been working as a janitor for his cover job.

The injured Lightfoot and Thunderbolt muddle along for awhile, with the young man growing increasingly dizzy and his speech slurred. They stumble upon the one-room schoolhouse, which had been moved to an interstate rest stop historical display, and recover the half-million from the first heist.

Thunderbolt rides off into the sunset, his friend and partner dead and all the threats against him dissolved. What sort of life lies before him? The movie offers only stubborn ambiguity and the obligatory sad ballad for the soundtrack.

"You know something? I don't think of us as criminals, you know? I feel we accomplished something. A good job. I feel proud of myself, man. I feel like a hero," Lightfoot opines, right before slumping over dead.

"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" accomplished less than it could. There's a great movie in there, one where Red is a peripheral villain and the duo arrives at their denouement all on their own, having passed through the fire and come out changed men.

Nothing ruins a good buddy movie like interlopers.

Reeling Backward: "Bad Company" (1972)

A teaser I used to like to spring on people was this: "Do you know who is very quietly having himself one of the all-time great film acting careers?"

Prior to 2009, when he finally won an Academy Award after five tries, I don't think many people would have answered "Jeff Bridges." But I think it's true -- and evidently more now agree with me, helped by two more Oscar nominations since.

Seriously: Bogie. Cary Grant. John Wayne. Jack Nicholson. Brando. Pacino. Duvall. De Niro. You name 'em... Bridges can match (or beat) any of them in terms of acting technique, career longevity, range, choice of roles and emotional genuineness.

Think of a time over the last five decades when Jeff Bridges wasn't making great movies. You can't. From "The Last Picture Show" up until "Hell or High Water" a little more than a year back, he's always inhabiting roles with an unpracticed authenticity, from giant blockbusters to little indies, playing everything from presidents to aliens to cowpokes.

Each time, we never question him for an instant. We never think, "Here's the big movie star, doing his thing." (Unlike, say, Harrison Ford, who's roughly his contemporary.) Maybe it's because he's never been much of a public celebrity -- married to the same woman for 40-plus years -- or politically outspoken, but Bridges has that ability to instantly disappear right in front of us. I think part of the reason he didn't get the credit he deserved was because he made it look so easy.

Fresh off an Oscar nomination for "Picture Show," Bridges co-starred in "Bad Company," a Western directed by Robert Benton ("Kramer vs. Kramer"), in his first foray behind the camera, from a script he co-wrote with David Newman. The two had also collaborated on the screenplay for "Bonnie and Clyde," and with this film Benton launched an important directing career spanning four decades, including the underrated "The Human Stain" from 2003. In all, Benton has notched six Oscar nominations with three wins.

Bridges was about 22 when they shot the film, playing maybe 17 or 18 as the leader of a distaff gang of boys fleeing conscription in the Union army to seek their fortunes in the West.

I admit I'd never heard the term "acid Western," which more or less got started with "El Topo" in 1970, and was loosely applied to a number of films in the ensuing years, including "Bad Company." The movie is certainly not surreal or bizarre like Jodorowsky's. In a lot of ways, it's very old-fashioned, with its washed-out colors -- almost sepia-toned -- familiar Western archetypes and tinny piano musical score (by Harvey Schmidt).

Perhaps it got thrown in with the acid crowd because of its youthful cast, which was taken to mean Benton and Newman were espousing a counter-cultural stance. It's a tale of how very young boys were chewed up and spit out by a burgeoning young nation's expansion. For me, it's notable that they set out not out of a sense of adventure, but fleeing from serving in the Civil War. Of course, they end up finding as big a bellyful of violence, malevolence and despair as they would've on the front lines.

Robert Ebert, in his contemporaneous review, noted correctly that the story is essentially a series of self-contained episodes. Drew Dixon (Barry Brown), an upright Christian lad from Ohio, is sent packing by his parents after the bluejacket recruiters come calling at every household, dragging out boys outfitted in dresses to fool the draft. The Dixons already sacrificed their older son to the war, and send the younger one west to seek safety and fortune, with $100 and his sibling's gold watch to guide him.

He soon runs in with Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges), a bushwhacker who befriends Drew by warning him about the prevalence of bushwhackers in these parts. After cautioning him that all the stagecoaches west are booked for six months solid, Jake plunks him over the head and steals all the money in his pocket (not knowing that Drew has hidden the bulk of his fortune in his boot).

Coming to, Drew seeks solace at the house of the local preacher, but after the wife leaves to fetch him, who should come calling but Jake, holding the purse one of his gang stole earlier, hoping to return it for a double-dipped reward. The two lads take up a ferocious row, smashing apart the woman's drawing room, before making their peace with Jake offering to take Drew into his gang.

First, Drew has to prove his worth by pulling off a job alone, which he fakes by spinning a story of robbing a local merchant, presenting $12 from his secret stash as evidence.

From there, the story is a gradual descent in fortunes as the boys move marginally westward, encountering bandits, farmers, whores, lawmen and other fates that whittle their numbers until only Drew and Jake remain. Ardent friends who often behave like foes, it's the low-born scallywag trying to make sense of the educated fellow who reads "Jane Eyre" and refuses to steal, and vice-versa.

The supporting cast is a veritable who's who of "that guy" character actors:

• John Savage, in just his third film role, as Loney, the suspicious member of the gang.
• Jerry Houser, forever Killer Carson from "Slap Shot," as Arthur, the nervous one.
• Ed Lauter, a lifetime of cops and robbers roles, as a hard bandit who narrates his own death.
• Geoffrey Lewis, recognizable by his blue eyes and bald pate, as another robber who gets his hands on Drew's watch... for a time.
• Jim Davis as the hard-hearted Marshal who eventually catches up with everyone.
• John Quade, another bald-headed bad guy known for his porcine visage, who often tussled with Clint Eastwood onscreen.
• Charles Tyner, with a scowl that could curdle milk, as a (barely) generous farmer in the boys' time of need.

The boys' gang is rounded out by Jim Bob (Damon Douglas), a dimwitted blond, and Joshua Hill Lewis as Boog, a pint-sized fountain of foul-mouthed insults. Boog is only about 11 or 12 years, usually the brunt of the other boys' teasing, so his inevitable death -- his head blasted apart by a shotgun for stealing a pie -- marks the film's turning from fun 'n' games to tragic lesson.

The real standout of the supporting cast is David Huddleston as Big Joe, the aging leader of the gang of bandits who waylay Jake's crew, after he has fallen asleep during his turn at watch. Wearing a stovepipe hat, a voluminous fur coat and often chewing a pipe, Big Joe serves as Jake's chief antagonist, and teacher.

There's a great moment where Jake levels his pistol at Big Joe, who doesn't even flinch, talking the boy into complacency, then casually whipping out his own sidearm and blasting Jake's revolver away. "Still got it," he mutters to himself, before tendering this sage counsel:

"My boy, let me give you a little piece of advice. If you're going to pull a gun on somebody, which happens from time to time in these parts, you better fire it about a half a second after you do it... because most men aren't as patient as I am."

He orders his men to seize every last bit of their wealth -- even their beans and coffee -- but leaves the boys with their guns and horses. Because it's acceptable in this eat-or-be-eaten hellscape to inflict every means of deprivation, but you don't leave another man immobile and defenseless.

In a normal Western the paths of Big Joe, Drew and Jake would cross again with a violent extravaganza. This does happen, but the older man sits the fight out, reassured by his lieutenant that the rest of the men can handle two boys. Jake and Drew manage to get the drop and blast apart Big Joe's entire gang, but he doesn't bother with revenge -- simply gathering up another gang to keep marauding.

After Drew and Jake have inevitably come to cross purposes, after the latter finally discovers Drew's secret stash of cash and thunks him unconscious a second time, it comes as little surprise to us to discover that Jake throws in with Big Joe. Perhaps the hot-headed lad, who loves to boss others around, has finally figured out he has a thing or two to learn.

"Bad Company" is a good, not a great film. The central dynamic between Jake and Drew never fully clicks, though each actor acquits himself well. Bridges is charismatic and slightly skeevy, while Brown comes across has hopelessly blinkered -- a do-gooder who tries to convince himself he's not careening down the slipper slope.

Sad coda to his career: Brown made a few more films, with never such another high-profile role (unless you count his billing as "trooper" in "Piranha") and a little TV, before taking his own life in 1978 at age 27.

Though the film isn't well remembered these days, it does showcase one of the most important actors of the last century, stepping from boyhood roles into grown-up ones, and from the edge of the stage to the center.