Blue Thunder (1983)
Directed by John Badham
Written by Don Jakoby and Dan O'Bannon

It had been 20 years since I saw Blue Thunder, and I didn't recall anything about it except the scene wherein the helicopter pilots hover outside a woman's house and watch her do some nude yoga. Having seen it again just now, I still don't remember much else.

For a reasonably big 80s action hit, Blue Thunder doesn't command much in the way of nostalgia value … you don't hear people going on about it like they do about Top Gun or even Iron Eagle. This actually works in the film's favor, however, as the low kitsch factor helps it hold up. Despite a lack of "classic" scenes, Blue Thunder remains a tight and satisfying experience, like my sister's vagina, also 20 years old and lacking in kitsch value.

Roy Scheider plays a loose-cannon police "air support" pilot whose Vietnam flashbacks interfere with his work, but also provide him with a moral compass. When he's assigned to a top-secret project to test a prototype military helicopter, he has reservations, then outright opposition when he discovers it's part of a shadowy government plot to incite race riots. (?)

Or something like that. Mostly, it's all an excuse to show helicopters chasing each other over L.A., and that is actually enough.

Malcolm MacDowell is a capable villain; Daniel Stern is a capable "young cop partner" type. The heart of the film is carried by Scheider's surprisingly sweet relationship between hilariously ditzy Candy Clark and her young son.

Blue Thunder is a B-movie, sure, but it's cleverly disguised as an A-movie, particularly with the top-shelf visuals. The notably bad music kind of sinks it, removing any and all propulsive tension from the helicopter chases and instead providing vaguely mysterious cues a la "Murder, She Wrote."

It's all a lot less memorable than I want it to be, but I'll always have a spot in my heart for this film … one of the few pieces of my childhood that hasn't been coopted by water-cooler fuckwits with selective memories.

Review by Farting Dracula