RELEASE DATE: 1983
RATED: R
REVIEWED BY: The DarkSider
The flick begins with Scheider's highly unstable character Officer Murphy getting set to do a little night chopper detail. He gets paired up with newbie Lymangood and the two set off for a routine evening air patrol. You know; cop stuff like spotting abandoned cars, busting robbers and voyeurism on a chick doing nude yoga. Yeah, I'm sure the term "to protect and serve" covers that last bit of police duty.
Anyhow, that evening a big wig in town gets attacked in her driveway and killed. Turns out she is part of a town council working to end urban violence. Murphy arrives a little too late but helps take out the perps. This is after a post traumatic stress flashback to his days in Nam when someone chucked a VC out of a chopper he was driving. Glad to see such a stable human being is in charge of machinery that swoops over people's houses.
When they land, Murphy and Lymangood get an ear load of crap about their activities that evening from their boss Captain Braddock. Murphy sees himself getting grounded and we get treated to kind of a pointless romance angle with Murphy's main squeeze Kate. This goes away as quickly as it comes into the movie and the next day Murphy gets called in by Braddock.
Murphy goes with several military bigwigs to check out their new line of urban defense. This would be the film's title machinery, Blue Thunder. A chopper with a bunch of cool gadgets like high tech microphones, guns, thermal cameras, espresso machine etc. During the display of power, Murphy notes the chopper's way too over the top destructive capacity. Well you gotta figure, hellfire and brimstone from the sky is bound to kill at least one bad guy if you level 10 blocks. Thanks for careful planning Blue Thunder engineers.
Blue Thunder lands and who else but Malcom "viddy well little brother" McDowell should pop out of the driver's seat. I should say now that McDowell is an awesome actor. However he seemed to have been lumped into kind of a standard snide English guy in this role. Much like Hugh Grant in 99% of the movies he stars in. He is Col. Cochrane in this movie and apparently has a disgruntled past with Murphy.
It doesn't take Cochrane to start crap with Murphy. Matter of fact the next day him and Murphy go out on a chopper run. Before all of this Cochrane loosens a screw in Murphy's chopper. Why, well hes just being a standard naughty Malcom McDowell role. This causes Murphy to crash into a building site. This gives way to an amusing bit where the workers are more pissed off at Murphy than concerned. I have to admit now this film did have a great sense of humor about some of the scenes. I'll cover more on that later.
Murphy and Lymangood head out for an evening of patrol in Blue Thunder after getting a fairly obvious plot foreshadowing of sorts about the chopper's sound recording capabilities. After more unsettling voyeurism, the two discover some sketchy stuff on the chopper's computer about Cochrane. They get called back in by Cochrane and the two note him screeching off in his car. Murphy decides to ignore orders to land and follow him.
Well long story short, Cochrane and the powers that be were behind the murder of the big wig woman in the beginning of the film. They also intend to take out Murphy at all costs. Luckily for Murphy, Lymangood gets it all on tape but quickly gets off'd for his efforts. Murphy quickly becomes a set up suspect in his murder. Lymangood leaves Murphy a message that he hid the tape in a dumpster across town. Good move d*ckhead.
Murphy steals Blue Thunder thus cuing up a little too late in the film chase sequence. However it is a good one in which he calls Kate about the tape. He tells her to fetch it and take it over to the local TV studio. Not exactly sure why seeing he had a chopper on his hands and could have done the deed twice as fast. Anyhow, Cochrane and his buddies send out two F16s on Murphy.
Murphy succeeds in avoiding the choppers and in a hilarious moment one of their missiles blows up a Chinese chicken roasting restaurant. This causes a virtual rainstorm of falling chickens. I would have been there scooping up a few free dinners.
Anyhow, Kate successfully gets the tape to the media and Murphy finds himself against Cochrane in a chopper battle. The two jab away at each other until Murphy pulls off a law bending physics move to win the battle sending Cochrane down in a fiery blaze. This leaves Murphy to take out Blue Thunder by leaving it in the way of an oncoming train. Personally I would have flown off to world domination but hey, thats just me.
Blue Thunder actually spawned a video game and a television series later in it�s chopper life. The film by far may not be the biggest or brightest action film ever produced. It can be quite slow at times and unfortunately the action is few and far between. Schneider offers up a standard performance and unfortunately McDowell�s talents get wasted in the film�s script. Still, it keeps the restless mind occupied with it�s uncanny sense of humor and scenes of hilarity. Aka, theres something about chickens falling from the sky I will always find funny.
Very few, then again voyeuristic cops should fit that description.
1.) Cochrane: Introducing great evil movie catch phrases...
Darth Vadar - "If you only knew the power of the dark side. "
The Joker - "Ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light. "
Col. Cochrane - "Catch you later..." (complete with a pointing motion. )
Yep, some catch phrase sh*t just doesn�t work in movies does it?
