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Thunder Road

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

USA

•

2018

1h32

Jim Cummings

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Director

Jim Cummings, Kendal Farr, Nican Robinson, Jocelyn DeBoer

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Stars

Drama, Comedy

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Genre

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Southern police officer Jim Arnaud tries to raise his daughter as a love letter to his late mom while facing a personal and often hilarious meltdown as he struggles with his grief and his pending divorce.

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WHAT ARE CRITICS SAYING?

100

The Playlist by

The film is all at once a genuine, crowd-pleasing barnstormer and an uncomfortably identifiable personal theme park 4D experience.
75

The A.V. Club by A.A. Dowd

One could argue that Thunder Road is more sympathetic than critical—which is to say, that it’s a movie that asks you to feel sorry for a white cop with serious women issues. If that’s an oversimplification, it’s because Cummings, who also wrote and directed the film, has delivered a remarkable tragicomic performance in the lead.
75

RogerEbert.com by Brian Tallerico

He’s a fascinating cinematic creation and a pronouncement of a major talent in Jim Cummings, the star, writer, and director of the SXSW Grand Jury winner, Thunder Road.
90

Rolling Stone by David Fear

It’s a matter of opinion whether Thunder Road is one of the best films of 2018, a distinction best left for listmakers and marketers. (Cue “It, Me” copping to the former.) But I can say it’s one of my favorites, the sort of experience where you walk out of a theater 90 minutes later and feel like something inside you has shifted two klicks to the left.
83

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

While it remains a fascinating character study driven by Cummings’ striking delivery, it also falls back on conventional twists. The resulting drama showcases a remarkably strong vision in the confines of more familiar story beats, but it’s a testament to Cummings’ maniacal performance that he manages to keep us engaged.
75

The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Through a combination of caricature and psychological portrait, subtle touches and howls of impotent, uniformed rage, [Cummings’] film offers a memorable depiction of a man ill-equipped to deal with or direct his feelings—probably not all that different from the rest of us.
80

The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore

Driven by Cummings' transfixingly vulnerable performance, the movie not only justifies returning to the source: Shockingly, it does so without even using the device that seemed key to the short's success.
75

The Film Stage by John Fink

The film is wholly original taking on issues of the day from parental rights to mental illness and later, the opioid crisis. But while there is plenty of depth here, Thunder Road feels a little too much like it has been cobbled together from sketches and ideas for a one-man show.
78

Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten

Thunder Road has received oodles of festival awards, including the Grand Jury Award at SXSW. The film is a singular work. Even though it doesn’t always live up to the promise of its opening sequence, Thunder Road is an exhilarating ride.
90

Variety by Owen Gleiberman

At Thunder Road, you’ll giggle at moments, and you’ll also be moved, but mostly you’ll know the precise crazy-sane reality of who this man is.

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