This exceptional directorial debut from Michael Cimino is not only one of the greatest action comedies, but a cinematic estuary, blending 60’s tough guy American cinema sensibilities with New Hollywood and by teaming a veteran conservative icon with a young hippie star. Clint Eastwood is Thunderbolt, a long-dormant ex-con laying low in rural Montana, posing as a preacher. Jeff Bridges (in an Oscar-nominated performance) is Lightfoot, a hotshot drifter who roots out Eastwood for fun. They team up with two of Thunderbolt’s old criminal pals (George Kennedy & Geoffrey Lewis) to hit up a state-of-the-art bank vault. Blistering car chases, shot with Cimino’s sumptuous eye for Northern landscapes, litter the film’s clever action sequences.
“Michael Cimino’s Thunderbolt & Lightfoot is a buddy movie classic, with the amazing combination of Clint Eastwood in his prime and Jeff Bridges in one his earliest starring roles. This handsome duo head up a tough, funny and frequently insane heist movie. I dearly love this movie. With Bridges now attaining the same legend status as Clint himself, it will be great to watch this again with a crowd.” – Edgar Wright
“One of the best road movies of the 1970s, and the auspicious debut of one of the decade’s best directors” – Jake Cole, Slant
“Debuting director Michael Cimino obtains superior performances from Clint Eastwood, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis and especially Jeff Bridges.” – Variety
“Both Kennedy and Lewis turn in colorful performances, but it’s Eastwood and Bridges’ film, and their ill-defined, tender friendship makes the movie. They’re kindred spirits, whatever their differences in age and temperament. But what unites them also makes them misfits in a world that keeps crowding out what it can’t tame.” – Keith Phipps, The Dissolve
