(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Mon 27 April 2026 20:15, UK
Opinions, as everyone knows, are just like arseholes, and Clint Eastwood sounded a lot more like the latter when he offered the former on a movie that endures as a masterpiece of the ‘New Hollywood’ era.
Obviously, anyone can say what they like about any film, no matter the consensus, and since he’s Clint Eastwood, the four-time Academy Award-winning icon and living legend who conquered cinema on two fronts without looking as if he’d broken a sweat, he’s more entitled to his beliefs than most.
Then again, there’s a whiff of self-aggrandisement in the air, with the actor and filmmaker suggesting that a picture he starred in was superior to one that claimed five Academy Awards from nine nominations, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, and there can’t be too many folks who’d agree with him.
First off, and in the interest of fairness, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is not a bad flick, and it’s one of the better light-hearted early forefathers to the buddy caper to emerge during the early 1970s, even if the preposterous way that Jeff Bridges eats his ice cream is something that can never be unseen.
He earned the movie’s sole Oscar nomination for his performance as the back half of the title duo, and like most Eastwood-led genre efforts of the time, it was a hit among audiences. It was also Michael Cimino’s feature-length directorial debut, and he seriously upped his game for his second outing.
Now, while it’s perfectly OK to enjoy both, in what world is Thunderbolt and Lightfoot a superior film to The Deer Hunter? One is an entertaining road-tripper, and the other is one of the decade’s defining pictures, a haunting exploration of male psychology, trauma, the cost of war, and more besides.
In Eastwood’s world, apparently, because he was adamant that he’d headlined the better Cimino flick. “It was done in a much tighter fashion editorially, judging by The Deer Hunter,” he ruminated. “He did a nice job on Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and he should be proud of it. I personally think the other was rather indulgent.”
In terms of writing and directing, there was still only one winner, as far as the ‘Man with No Name’ was concerned. “It’s a far better script than the other one, and it’s a far better executed job,” he declared. “In The Deer Hunter, he got wrapped up in the lateral slide,” which he likened to “unmotivated camera-moving like you see in every commercial on TV.”
How many people have compared The Deer Hunter to a TV commercial? At least one, and that one happens to be Clint Eastwood. As for the final scene? He didn’t like that either. It’s blatantly symbolic, but from where he was sitting, “If you put enough of that stuff in a film you can fool half of the people half of the time and some of the people some of the time,” so we can safely place him among the very few who think Cimino’s indisputable classic isn’t as great as it’s been cracked up to be.
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