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Blue Thunder | Year: 1983 Directed: - John Badham Actors/Actresses: - Roy Scheider - Warren Oates Why is this not on DVD?!!! The 5 stars are right! This is an excellent movie! Roy Sheider plays a great protagonist who deals with post-traumatic stress who is assigned to test pilot the helicopter (Blue Thunder-which looks like the military Apache helicopter). While on mission, using the helicopter's stealth capabilties, he overhears a conversation that reveals a plot to cause civil uprising in order to give cause to impliment the Blue Thunder into service. Malcolm McDowell plays a great love-to-hate villian who is assigned to kill Roy Sheider's character in a daring showdown action sequence that involves two helicopters shooting at each other while flying between the buildings of downtown Los Angeles. At one point, a fighter jet gets involved! Overall, this movie has an interesting story, good pacing, editing, good character development...entertaining all the way through! It also has a good resolve/ending which for movies of this genre is saying alot! <BR> If you have to buy it on VHS, it's a good buy. (Personally, I'm waiting for the DVD!) My favorite movie of all time Blue Thunder is the fictional story of a high tech helicopter which the government plans to use against the population under the guise of "crowd control from the air" for the upcoming Olympic games. Some of you may remember Airwolf, or even the short lived Blue Thunder series with James Farentino and Dana Carvey, this is where it all started. Although the plot is kinda lame, this movie boasts state of the art (in 1983) aerial combat action sequences over Los Angeles (L.A. natives will recognize the Piper Tech building, where air support is headqurtered, the downtown cityscape, the L.A. river), and a cool chase scene through the LA River, which like the rest of L.A., is concrete and steel. Roy Scheider (Murphy), Daniel Stern(Lymangood), and Warren Oates (in his last picture), give great performances, however, Malcom MacDowell's character, a sinister Army Lt. Colonel, is a bit hard to believe. The real star of the show here is Blue Thunder, a modified 1972 French Gazelle, outfitted with listening devices, video and infrared cams, and an M61 20mm vulcan cannon fitted to the nose. Blue Thunder is able to see through walls, peek down dresses at 1000 feet, and destroy a city block at the touch of a button. Some will notice the similarities to the Apache AH-64, and the cockpit windows are faceted, much like the then-classified stealth fighter. Blue Thunder takes us to that "big brother is watching you" card reminicent of 1984,(which is the year the Olympics were in L.A.) what with its surveillance equipment, and there is even a reference to that in the movie, when Lymangood asks Murphy, "Big Brother, you want it on or off?" referring to the cockpit recorder which records their conversations. "I think we can lose that,"he replies. The ending battle scene is great, with an awesome finale, and a somewhat chilling epilogue, as the credits begin to roll. You get the feeling that Murphy has avenged. All in all, a pretty good movie with a bit of techno-sci-fi-thriller. Blue Thunder Bowl ... An iron-plated Huey gunship with duel-mounted .50 caliber machine guns threatens to destroy the world. Only Roy Sheider can save the day by hanging off a flagpole on the side of a building and firing a rifle at Blue Thunder's gas tank, causing the shark to explode and then Sheriff Brody has to swim back to shore with a guy who has been "counting money all [his] life". Something like that. Blue Thunder had slightly less appeal than the hit tv series "Airwolf" (starring critically acclaimed alcoholic wife-beater, Jan Michael Vincent). As the film moves toward the end, you will look back and realize that the woman getting naked in the first 15 minutes of the movie was the best part ... and you will want to rewind it and watch that part again. If Popeye, Iron Eagle, and Red Dawn are in your movie collection, you may as well round it off and purchase Blue Thunder as well. Buy Blue Thunder at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Blue Thunder Search with the Priority Search Engine on Blue Thunder This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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