THUNDERHEART
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Awful cliche-ridden script about a murder case on the Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation. Well- intentioned film has a good performance by Graham Greene (of DANCES WITH WOLVES), but don't trust the film's portrayal of Native American culture and don't expect to see a new plot. Rating: -1 (-4 to +4).
Okay, now we all know the rules; let's go over them one more time. On one side we've got good guys, on the other we've got bad guys. All the cute people with personality on are the good guys' side. Bad guys get to be backed by the United States government. Good guys get all the women and children. Bad guys get all the fancy guns. Good guys get to fight for their land, their homes, and principle. Bad guys are fighting for money and always get to strike first. Nice looking woman. Yeah, she's a good guy all right. Heck, bad guys are all men anyway. She's lived here all her life. No, wait. She went away to school but she came back to help her people. Yeah. She's a doctor or a teacher or something that's got the right tone. And she's *very politically committed*. After all, this is the 1990s. The old woman who looks like a Cabbage Patch doll? She's the doctor's mother. Now you need someone for the audience to identify with. He's the star, and he's an American. So naturally he comes in sort of on the bad guys' side. But when he sees how nasty the bad guys are and how cute and good the good guys are, he slowly changes sides. He's attracted to the teacher. Or did we decide she was a doctor? Anyway, through learning about the good guys by being around them and through the magic of sexual tension, our hero slowly figures out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Now who are the good guys going to be? Indians? No, we did them with BROKEN ARROW. Vietnamese? THE UGLY AMERICAN! Chinese? THE SAND PEBBLES! Salvadorans? UNDER FIRE. We've done Arabs AND Jews and blacks. It's been done with the Irish, but then it was the British government supplying the bullets. Maybe it's time for Indians again.
Oh, heck, I know director Michael Apted's heart was in the right place, but John Fusco's script was just awful. Twenty-five years ago this would have been a good script but it has been used, with variations, just too often. And the Indians who have been handed so many injustices deserve a better story. The motive for the murder that brings FBI man Ray Lavo (played by Val Kilmer) to the Oglala Sioux reservation is also one that has been used too many times. And for one more cheap shot, the film leaves ambiguous if Indian magic might be working. I thought that went out with BILLY JACK. Native Americans don't have any magic any more than anyone else does. I wish they did. Maybe if they did, they could use it to get some justice. But Apted uses trick photography and staged scenes to imply you really can see ghost dancers who disappear in a flash or to imply that a man might have turned himself into a deer. Indians are not great magical people who live half in a spirit world. They are just a group of ethnic peoples who have been cheated and exploited and who desperately need a little bit of justice. Throwing them a bone by implying that their magic really breaks the laws of physics is just not what they need. If enough people confuse compassion for American Indians with liking this film, Tri-Star Pictures could make a bundle of money, almost none of which will go to help the Indians.
Some note should be made of Graham Greene's performance as a reservation policeman. His laconic performance is the most likable thing on the screen. And seeing his special Indian detection skills were certainly of some interest. Unfortunately, there is not enough of Greene to keep the film afloat. And for those who care, yes, there is a car chase to liven things up. I think that it is typical of Americans that after this whole plot is so thoroughly worn out, they give it to the Indians. I give THUNDERHEART a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews