**/****
DVD – Image B+ Sound A Extras A-
BD – Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Roy Scheider, Warren Oates, Candy Clark, Daniel Stern
screenplay by Dan O'Bannon & Don Jakoby
directed by John Badham
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover When I was in university, the off-campus students always had a cast-off '80s couch in their shared houses and apartments–you would go to a party and without fail encounter something upholstered in what looked like tan burlap with a collection of thick and thin brown or rust stripes close to the centre. I honestly couldn't remember seeing anything so horrid in anyone's house I knew during the '80s, but now that it was there in front of me, it brought back all the uncool childhood memories that the decade's official style story lives to deny. Blue Thunder is exactly like that couch: it's a ridiculous farrago of clichés intended to turn the cop movie into Star Wars (and The Parallax View into both) that winds up roping in a variety of cheesy tropes most people would rather forget they once responded to–though I dare say anyone of a certain generation will grin at least a little at what once passed for entertainment.
The film announces its intentions with its initial helicopter foray, wherein veteran officer Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) and newbie observer Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) take time out from their duties to hover and leer at a naked woman doing yoga. The two are grounded after neighbours complain (and an earlier, off-screen "freak-out" by the elder cop), but for reasons unknown the unreliable Murphy is then asked to test out a new experimental police chopper called Blue Thunder. A first trip flying side-by-side with Blue Thunder finds Murphy crashing into a construction site due to sabotage. No problem: we'll just put him in the driver's seat to uncover the sinister crowd-control measures with the chopper's crack surveillance equipment. This ruffles a few feathers, but again, no problem: we'll just let him stride onto the helipad and hijack Blue Thunder instead of offing him as we did Lymangood. This, of course, can mean only one thing: big climactic chopper duel over L.A.!
There's a lot of guff about the price of government surveillance and the need for public vigilance, but nobody stops to consider the "innocent" Peeping Tom-mery of that first huey tour of Los Angeles, or our heroic duo's willingness to utilize the bugging and watching devices once they get a shot at testing Blue Thunder for themselves. Like a lot of '80s schlock, the film loses its ethics when it comes to the good-ol'-boys with whom we're supposed to identify, granted as they are carte blanche to be assholes while Dean Wormer is demonized. Wormer, naturally, is Murphy's old Vietnam comrade Col. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), who is upper crust and British and seen tossing some hapless Vietnamese off a flying Huey in glaringly fake flashback footage. Any bets on who goes mana-a-mano with whom? After half of L.A. is destroyed?
The cast is left to gamely struggle with the non-intricacies of the plot. Scheider is remarkably credible in a role charitably described as underwritten, projecting fatherly strength even as he's supposed to be an unhinged 'Nam vet. Stern is suitably goofy as his ill-fated sidekick, while Candy Clark proves an unusual choice for Murphy's wigged-out, bad-driver girlfriend, as she seems about to burst out into a tap dance at any moment. Meanwhile, the great Warren Oates, in his final film, gives a triumphant performance as the cliché gruff superior Capt. Braddock, knocking nuance for a part that could easily have been handed to a schlepper. In fact, everyone appears to be taking the material far more seriously than it deserves–which could have resulted in camp but in fact becomes a different but related phenomenon.
Blue Thunder is an artifact–an obsolete bit of technology found in the back of your basement that makes you smile at its now-useless state. Everything in it, from the faith in the poetry of boxy war machinery to the affinity for pink sunsets to the artless tan and grey of much of the interiors, is obsolete, speaking to a long lost boy-culture that could never thrive now. And the filmmakers' total belief in the project proves the potency of nerd culture in the Reagan era, right down to Kate's mop-topped and bespectacled geek son (Ricky Slyter). It's a film watched in your basement when on what was still called Pay-TV, something to look at goggle-eyed during the nude scene as much as for the action money shots at the end. While it's probably useless to anyone born after a certain date, it reminded me of a time and a place better than more artistic visions of the period. Maybe it's just me.
THE DVD
Sony's Special Edition reissue of Blue Thunder has its video issues, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix kills. The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is somewhat oversaturated, with muddy flesh tones and slightly indistinct fine detail in darker scenes; it's not a disaster (indeed, it's pretty good for the period), but it's a problem for a film that spends so much time in the dark. Still, the audio makes up for these shortcomings with incredibly subtle discrete imaging. There are some clever sweeps of chopper blades across the fronts as Blue Thunder moves from left to right, excellent utilization of the rear speakers, and an absurdly crystalline rendering of Arthur Rubenstein's ridiculous synth-tinkle score. Only a hint of distortion costs the sound top marks.
Extras begin with a group commentary from director John Badham, editor Frank Moriss, and motion-control supervisor Hoyt Yeatman. Badham pretty much runs the show on this one, and he's a remarkably loquacious chap: there are practically no dead spots as he cheerily explains his artistic and technical decisions. He's alive to the more ridiculous elements of the film and makes no apologies for certain tacky scenes, such as the explosion of a BBQ restaurant that showers the neighbourhood in chickens. It's an entertaining yakker, if not exactly scholarly. Meanwhile, "The Special: Building Blue Thunder" (8 mins.) features Badham and various designers discussing the design and execution of the film's main technical challenge. Real helicopters, it turns out, were a) streamlined to the point of looking "feminine," and b) didn't like to take much weight. Thus, once outfitted with all the fake Blue Thunder bells and whistles, the chosen chopper didn't manoeuvre well. Also of note: the defense contractor who offered thousands of rounds of live ammo to be used. Badham wisely declined.
The main event, of course, is "Ride with the Angels: The Making of Blue Thunder" (44 mins.), which is surprisingly thorough in its streak from pre- to post-production. Dan O'Bannon starts things off by talking of his and co-writer Don Jakoby's plans to make Taxi Driver with a helicopter pilot; the studio naturally thought it too dark, and so a thriller was fashioned from the material basic, attracting the attention of Badham. Though the doc may be a tad hands-off in dealing with the actors and "creative" production, it's all business in discussing the technical challenges of the final chase sequence–such as that ridiculous chicken scene in which a city street was covered in grease (and homeless people were unwittingly provided with lunch). An 8-minute promo featurette dating back to 1983 predictably focuses on the meagre relevance of the thing, although Badham does gush about "action" in a candid moment. Also included are storyboard galleries for three sequences, the film's trailer, and trailers for The Patriot, The Fog, and "The Best of WWII Movies," featuring the rock soundtrack for which the Great War always cried out. Originally published: May 1, 2006.
by Bill Chambers This Blu-ray release really makes a strong case for Blue Thunder being one of the great 'L.A. at night' movies. I was fairly, um, thunderstruck by the 2.40:1, 1080p presentation, which renders those bird's-eye, neon-green pointillist cityscapes without smear, bleed, or any other kind of obfuscation of detail endemic to lower-res incarnations of the film. The image betrays the same source as the DVD (the infrequent pinholes that crop up on both are in synch), but boy does it "pop" in HiDef, and with minimal–if not zero–assistance from either DVNR or edge-enhancement. What with their relative lack of crisp blacks, some of the nighttime helicopter interiors look "flashed" (albeit not muddy like they do in NTSC), though I personally find this preferable to artificial contrast boosting, as that would've only squelched what little shadow detail there is in these shots. Upgraded to 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, the audio is indeed remarkably discrete for the period, although an overall dearth of bass gives away the age of the soundmix. The commentary and featurettes discussed below resurface here (the latter in standard definition), where they're joined by HD previews for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, The Da Vinci Code (Extended Cut), Casino Royale, The Sky Crawlers, and Blood: The Last Vampire, plus Blue Thunder's own theatrical trailer.
109 minutes; R; BD: 2.40:1 (1080p/MPEG-4), DVD: 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); BD: English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, French 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, DVD: English DD 5.1, French Dolby Surround, Portuguese DD 2.0 (Mono); DVD: CC; English, French, Spanish, Portuguese subtitles; BD-50, DVD-9; BD: Region-free, DVD: Region One; Sony
