And every time, Clint Eastwood, the filmmaker who would eventually deny<\/a> Matt Damon a second crack at his South African accent because he didn\u2019t want to waste the crew\u2019s time, would say<\/a>, \u201cGive the kid another one.” It\u2019s a small act of compassion that 50 years of legend has made mythic. It\u2019s also par for the course on Thunderbolt and Lightfoot<\/em>, an off-kilter heist picture snuck between Dirty Harrys that remains Clint\u2019s most romantic vehicle set beyond Madison County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laying low as a priest among the amber waves, Thunderbolt wills his better half into existence with a verse from Isaiah about pleasant apocalypse: \u201cThe wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid.\u201d Enter Lightfoot in black leather pants and a white Pontiac Firebird that he didn\u2019t bother paying for. When they meet, it\u2019s penny-ante kismet, one running from a slovenly hitman, the other from slow police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first thing Lightfoot notices about the hitchhiker is his bad disguise. First thing Thunderbolt notices about the wheelman are his blue eyes. It\u2019s no fluke observation. When the duo eventually steals a car with a fresh wardrobe in the back, they opt for complementary patterns of cornflower. Later, when the big score calls for Bugs Bunny drag, Lightfoot keeps his dress coordinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe gotta stop meeting like this,\u201d coos Lightfoot, no sign of the minute-old agony over an attempted farewell from his new partner. \u201cPeople are gonna talk.\u201d Whatever they mean to each other, they never admit it, if they even understand it. Confirmations of something deeper than merry-men camaraderie show in small, unadorned moments from Thunderbolt. Letting the kid name him after his newspaper alias, blowing their petty cash on a round of ice cream, spilling beans on the same stashed loot that almost got him killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lightfoot is less comfortable with the unknown, admitting only by contradiction. He barks at every woman that walks by, sometimes literally. Waitresses. Pedestrians. Motorcyclists. But his dalliances always end in a loud dot-dot-dot. When he brings back two ladies to their hideout, it\u2019s Thunderbolt who gets a sex scene and bored orgasm. When he asks how his cocky cohort\u2019s night went, a night neither seen nor heard, Lightfoot cryptically demurs, \u201cRed-headed women are bad luck.\u201d Despite a lonesome housewife standing naked in front of him, the proud Casanova only takes the opportunity to tease Cro-Magnon accomplice Red Leary with the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those tables eventually turn when Thunderbolt hatches a plan that calls for Lightfoot to distract a guard with whatever feminine wiles he can muster. In an instant, he\u2019s no longer Jack-the-Lad, but a boy who lost badly at truth-or-dare. Red wastes no time sticking him in the soft: \u201cDon\u2019t forget to shave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot<\/em> takes place in a Boy\u2019s Own world. The four hoods – \u2018bolt, \u2018foot, Red, and sidekick Eddie Goody – fit neatly into recess archetypes. Life begins and ends with a one-room schoolhouse. Weeks spent bankrolling the heist with odd jobs like landscaping and ice cream delivery might as well be summer vacation. Their grand scheme hinges on sneaking into a drive-in movie. Crime is rosily abstract, Tom Sawyer stuff, like boosting a Plymouth from a kook who keeps rabbits in his trunk. Homosexuality is kept out of sight, but never far out of mind. Red, straight male id incarnate, speaks exclusively in homoerotic threats like, \u201cDrop your cocks,\u201d or, \u201cI want your ass.\u201d Thunderbolt\u2019s machine shop coworker can\u2019t stop laughing about the time he bullied a loser into grabbing his penis. But hey, it’s all in good fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until the Boy\u2019s Own rules stop applying. In a rage over their sloppy getaway, Red kicks Lightfoot into the dirt and keeps kicking. In any other movie, that\u2019s three scenes of bruise make-up. In Cimino\u2019s, it\u2019s terminal. Lightfoot dies slowly on his feet, even as they find the loot, even as Thunderbolt buys him his dream Caddy in cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think of us as criminals, you know?\u201d says the kid, barely able to keep a celebratory cigar in his mouth, let alone form the words. They\u2019re not friends, at least by Red\u2019s definition – someone you trust enough to kill<\/em>. But before either can fill in the blank, Lightfoot dies and Thunderbolt breaks his cigar in eulogy. Whatever they were besides criminals, there\u2019s no word for it now.So wonders Paul Williams over the end credits, \u201cWhere does a fool go when there\u2019s no one left to listen?\u201d Thunderbolt and Lightfoot<\/em>, a deceptively tender love story from the most infamously slow director in history and starring the most infamously fast, doesn\u2019t have the answer to that riddle. But it does have Clint Eastwood giggling as Jeff Bridges tries to smear raccoon shit on him, and he\u2019s never looked giddier. “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/thunderbolt2-1024x768.jpg\")
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