Big fun on the dirt roads in Kentucky and the Tennessee! If you like car chases, you should enjoy this movie about a moonshiner played by Robert Mitchum who outruns and and outdrives the revenue men and also outmaneuvers the thugs of a dirty businessman who wants to put Mitchum's family out of business. By today's standards, the filming of the chase scenes are not spectacular and in several close up shots you can even sense that they are in the studio and the car is on some type of contraption that is making it bounce! One or two of the car crashes are also obviously not quite as realistic as they are in many films. Despite it all, this film is often thrilling due in part to Robert Mitchum's very strong performance and charisma and in part to the many scenes which are very well shot with good camera work. There's just something about a 1950's jalopy roaring down a winding dirt road in the mountains of Tennessee that makes our hearts race and few movies have captured that like this film has! The cars are almost as big of a star in this movie as Robert Mitchum is. This movie is also a very interesting slice of Americana because it gives us a glimpse of a moment in time in certain parts of America that is now gone. Also, this movie is about a rebel (Robert Mitchum) who feels that his rights as a free man are being taken away. At times the film attempts to say something about our freedoms and also about the rural Tennessee way of life, but it doesn't succeed very well in this area although this film does attempt to do so when it tries to tell the story about these mountain folk and their lives. The scene of a caravan of car headlights after dark on a winding mountain road bringing home the mountain's dead sons is touching and memorable and sad for what it represents and yet sometimes the characters and situations seem just a bit too much like caricatures instead of real people and real moments. However the movie is still able to give us an impression of what such a time in history may have been like. Robert Mitchum's character, despite his many good qualities is just a bit too immoral and self centered to win over our unmitigated support although we can't help but root for him. Watch for Mitch Ryan of "Dharma and Greg" in a small but significant role in this film. Also, watch for Robert Mitchum's son Jim in an interesting debut in this movie If you like car chases and moonshine runnin' movies, this is the one for you!
Review of Thunder Road
