Thunderheart
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DVD details
Actor: Fred Dalton Thompson, Fred Ward, Graham Greene (II), Sam Shepard, Val KilmerBrand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 119 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-04-24
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Thunderheart
DVD Review: Excellent Mystery and Action on the Rez: Kilmer's Best
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent action and on site location film of the turbulent 70s when the American Indian Movement was considered a violent organization on the Sioux reservation. In this case, the film is depicted in the mid to late 70's and the Indian movement group is called ARM. What is billed as traditionalists, ARM, versus the tribal council is more a story of environmental corruption and greed. Kilmer plays a sharp young FBI go getter agent assigned to a reservation in conflict because of his record and because of his Sioux heritage (25 - 50%) that he purposely tries to forget. He arrives in South Dakota and is put under the tutelage of an independent FBI maverick played superbly by Sam Shepherd (All the Right Stuff, All the Pretty Horses). Often referred as the "Washington Redskin" by members of ARM, Kilmer is caught between two cultures. During the conflict, it's obvious that Shepherd is close to the leaders of the tribal council and its vigilante army. Kilmer, over time develops sympathies to the native culture and the people such as a grandfatherly Sioux who knows of Kilmer's past with a mystic ability that includes visions that he seems to pass on to Kilmer. Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves) serves as a reservation policeman who is Kilmer's bridge between the tribal council, his past and the traditional ways of the Sioux. Instead of a horse, Greene appropriately rides a motorcycle. Greene captures the split between past and present when he goes to pick up the body of a murder victim using his motorcycle pulling a traditional travois. Excellent acting by the entire case, particularly those that are actual Native Americans such as the naturally attractive Shelia Tousey playing Maggie Eagle Bear, are outstanding. Tousey plays a school teacher who sides with the traditionalists primarily to protect the health of the natives of the reservation. The on site location utilizes the badlands and what appears to be actual footage of the site of Wounded Knee that actually encompasses many of Kilmer's visions. The climatic ending is breath taking as the film pulls back to a far away shot taking in the effect of the terrain that is beautiful in its ugliness. Kilmer's relationship with the aging grandfather is touching and captures the mystic spirit of their unspoken communication that reveals things to Kilmer's character that he never knew or will ever forget. The film also captures some well timed humor, such as never put your hand in a hole in the ground expecting only to find the expected. The cross between cultures is done very well and gives you a feeling that there is spirit in the Native American culture today.
Description of Thunderheart
VAL KILMER STARS AS A PART SIOUX FBI AGENT WHO RELUCTANTLYAWAKENS TO HIS HERITAGE AS HE INVESTIGATES A MURDER ON AN INDIAN RESERVATION.Tough but moving, Thunderheart is an unusual story about an arrogant FBI agent (Val Kilmer) who participates in a federal investigation of a murder on an Oglala Sioux reservation. Kilmer's character is part Sioux himself, a detail that leaves him cold as he sets about pushing his way through the community to find facts on the case. In time, however, he begins to feel an ethnic tug and grows increasingly sympathetic to the locals and hostile toward his fellow G-men, much to the dismay of his agency mentor (Sam Shepard). The script is based on real events that occurred on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 in South Dakota (involving an armed standoff between Indian activists and the FBI, an event that prompted Thunderheart director Michael Apted to make a companion documentary, Incident at Oglala). The conclusion of Thunderheart feels like politically charged whimsy, but the real strength of the film is Kilmer's outstanding performance as a man in transformation. Apted's clear-eyed depiction of the Sioux's spiritual and cultural continuity with the past has none of the cloying romanticism of other films about Indians. Produced by Robert De Niro. --Tom Keogh
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