Sunday, October 02, 2005

Thunderstruck- Movie review

Okay, I have been on an AC/DC kick as of late which is why I am going to write a brief review of a movie that is sort of about them, but mainly not. This Australian film just came out on region one disc a few weeks ago. The film starts out in 1991 and five friends see AC/DC in concert then they avoid being killed because they find an old poster of Bon Scott in an alley way. They think he was watching over them so they make a pact that if one them dies before reaching 40 the others will take the remains to be buried next to Bon Scott. These guys are in a garage band and of course they think they will be big. Flash forward 12 years and life has been poor to average for four of them, but Ronnie has made money by writing jingles. The five former friends have not seen much of each other in years. Ronnie is killed in a freak accident and the others must decide whether to follow through with the promise. They eventually decide to do it and set out to take his ashes to be buried next to Bon Scott. They run into all kinds of obstacles and odd people along the way before finally fulfilling their promise.
I will start with the negatives and the biggest one is their is only one AC/DC song on the soundtrack which of course is Thunderstuck. I was really surprised that there weren't more AC/DC songs here and it would have helped. Some of the humor falls flat and the pacing seems a little awkward at times. That's about it for my problems with this film.
The positive list is a little longer overall. The acting was overall decent, not spectacular but believable enough. There were a number of funny moments throughout the film and even some just strange humor which is always welcome.What I liked most about the movie was that it was subtle in how they dealt with friendship and dealing with getting older and taking responsibility. While watching this film, I was reminded of Without a paddle which is a recent film with a similar plot. In Without a paddle, three friends are brought back together when a fourth friend dies an untimely death. They find a treasure map left by their friend and they set off after the treasure. It's a good film, but because it's Hollywood the film has to tie everything up nice and neat and have all of the characters have the problems in their lives resolved to some extent. That's not true in Thunderstruck and I like that. They may imply some things at the end of Thunderstuck, but because it's Australia instead of Hollywood they didn't feel that they had to wrap everything up perfectly. I commend them for doing this because it is perfectly okay to leave something to your imagination.
Overall this was a decent film, it could have used some more AC/DC songs, but it's worth seeing.

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