This movie has believable action. You can visualize yourself racing high-powered cars down country back roads. It has love--love of a young girl for an older man, and love of a man for a woman unlike anyone he ever knew as a young man. It has hate--hate for people who pretend to care, but don't, and hate for people bereft of any kindness. It has jealousy of someone who is losing the girl he wants to another man. It shows family love of backwoods people, people who are looked down upon by most others but actually have more decency than most people. It has sadness of life when things don't turn out the way they should. Though a relatively short movie, you come away with the feeling that you knew all of these people. Don't miss it. In the movie, Robert Mitchum plays a Korean war vet who has come back home to find he must fight for his way of life. He is a backwoodsman who delivers moonshine in tankers--fast modified automobiles. His people, backwoods people, eke out a living selling it. But the U.S. government wants him stopped because no federal taxes are paid on moonshine. At the same time, organized crime, selling unlicensed liquor themselves, wants his deliveries stopped and will kill to stop him. Mitchum's character sees little difference between the government and organized crime. He must also fight his brother who also wants to become a tanker driver, a profession Mitchum sees as increasingly dangerous, and fight an envious fellow tanker driver. Mitchum had asked Elvis Presley to play his brother in the movie. Presley was interested but followed Col. Parker's advice and Presley turned the role down. Had Presley accepted, he would have been perfect for the role.
Review of Thunder Road
