Rolling Thunder (1977)
Directed by John Flynn
A recently-returned Vietnam POW loses his family and his right hand during a violent home invasion, and seeks retribution against those responsible.
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3 films that influenced Rolling Thunder
What critics say influenced Rolling Thunder
The screenplay, which originated with Paul Schrader, the writer of "Taxi Driver," is miserably vicious, a hybrid of "The Wild Bunch" and "Death Wish" in which a returning P.O.W., an Air Force major who spent eight years imprisoned in North Vietnam, sets out to massacre a gang of hoodlums who break into his home, shove his right hand down a churning garbage disposal and shoot his wife and son.
The screenplay, which originated with Paul Schrader, the writer of "Taxi Driver," is miserably vicious, a hybrid of "The Wild Bunch" and "Death Wish" in which a returning P.O.W., an Air Force major who spent eight years imprisoned in North Vietnam, sets out to massacre a gang of hoodlums who break into his home, shove his right hand down a churning garbage disposal and shoot his wife and son.
The screenplay, which originated with Paul Schrader, the writer of "Taxi Driver," is miserably vicious, a hybrid of "The Wild Bunch" and "Death Wish" in which a returning P.O.W., an Air Force major who spent eight years imprisoned in North Vietnam, sets out to massacre a gang of hoodlums who break into his home, shove his right hand down a churning garbage disposal and shoot his wife and son.
Co-scenarist Paul Schrader translated Taxi Driver to Tex-Mex with 1977's Rolling Thunder, in which Major Charles Rane ( William Devane , impenetrable behind aviator shades) touches down in San Antone, after 2,555 days as a POW, to a wet-blanket countrypolitan theme song, a wife who didn't wait, and a USA that can't manufacture convertibles.
It sounds like a variation on "First Blood," but it's actually a 1977 film written by "Taxi Driver" scribe Paul Schrader and starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones.
Since Rolling Thunder was at least partially penned by Taxi Driver ‘s Paul Schrader, you can probably guess what that might be.
The screenplay was co-written by Heywood Gould and Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver"), and has the same kind of troubled vet-vigilante protagonist but goes in a different narrative direction.