Thunderheart Chad'z rating: ** (out of 4 = fair) 1992, R, 118 minutes [1 hour, 58 minutes] [thriller/mystery] starring: Val Kilmer (Ray Levoi), Sam Shepard (Frank "Cooch" Coutelle), Graham Greene (Walter Crow Horse), Sheila Tousey (Maggie Eagle Bear), produced by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, John Fusco, written by John Fusco, directed by Michael Apted.
For all it has going for it, "Thunderheart" certainly is a disappointment. It's a film with a serious attitude that tries, with complete logic, to mix too many genres together to tell a relatively simple story. Thus it gets tied up in knots and sinks under its own weight.
Val Kilmer stars as Ray Levoi, a young FBI agent who has been assigned to investigate a murder on an Indian reservation in the badlands of South Dakota. The homicide supposedly has ties to an Indian militia group the Aboriginals' Resistance Movement. We also learn Ray has Native American ancestry but does not know, nor care much about them. When he arrives at the reservation he denounces his heritage and is prejudice against the people living there. I predicted by the end of the film he would be completely "enlightened" with his ancestral ways... and I was right.
Ray is teamed with Frank "Cooch" Coutelle (Shepard), and the first 20 minutes or so is routine cop-buddy/detective material. Cooch does most of the talking which establishes the story's basic framework, and it seems as if this will be a straight mystery film, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Since this is a film about white government officials interacting with Native Americans the element of prejudice becomes a central theme. When the local sheriff, Walter Crow Horse (Greene), tries to help Ray and Cooch by advising them to get in touch with nature, they of course ignore and mock him. What bothered me was the manner in which this aspect was played upon - so blatantly that we have no choice but to see the feds as "bad" and the Native Americans and their lifestyle as innocent and "correct." The Indians' mystical and supernatural elements are presented so seriously it's quite distracting.
Eventually, the mystery Ray was sent to solve seems to be completely forgotten about. The story seems to be told through a series of misunderstandings and depicts Ray's contrast, lame, soul-searching. We also see his constant interaction with Crow Horse and a Native American woman, Maggie Eagle Bear (Tousey), who is the typical, sensitive, intelligent teacher/environmentalist. Thankfully there is no cheesy romance between the two, which is one of the few cliches the film does not exploit.
Most Hollywood thrillers tend to use confusion as a cop-out, and although this film is confusing at times, it doesn't placate to the viewer until the final act. Ray suddenly figures out who the killer is, but he doesn't arrest him even after the killer confesses! What we get is an unbelievable, unrealistic conspiracy and the "real" killer turns out to be someone that was under our nose the entire time (nah, that never happens!). The ending itself plays like a cross between an episode of "Starsky And Hutch" and a bad western. This was supposedly based on a true story, but Apted tries to blame the whole situation on corporate greed.
I'm not sure what the point of "Thunderheart" is. It doesn't work as a commercial thriller, mystery, nor drama because it's too over-the-top to take seriously. It's a shame.
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