Blue Thunder

(John Badham, USA, 1983)

Here's a movie to make you scratch your head in dazed disbelief.

Director John Badham seems to think he has fashioned a tough, populist anti-establishment parable in this action-packed tale of two airborne cops (Roy Scheider and Daniel Stern) who turn the latest, most insidious toy of the military (an armed, super-surveillance helicopter nicknamed Blue Thunder) against its dark inventors.

But – forgetting the woeful, formulaic banter between old renegade Scheider and young rookie Stern, and forgiving the ease and speed with which world order is again put right – why must our heroes be unrepentant, adolescent voyeurs, spying on every single woman and copulating couple in the naked city?

MORE Badham: Nick of Time, Point of No Return, The Hard Way, Stakeout

© Adrian Martin January 1993