Blue Thunder (1983)

Director: John Badham

Starring: Roy Scheider, Warren Oates, Candy Clark, Daniel Stern, Malcolm McDowell

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Skies Will Never Be the Same!

Plot: Blue Thunder is a specially modified helicopter. It is for police work, but is armed and designed to counter street insurgencies. It's makers want to show what it will do, but have to train a Los Angeles Police pilot Frank Murphy, to fly and use it in order to allow it to operate in the city. Murphy and the project pilot have differences going back to Vietnam. The conflict between them continues to heat up as Murphy begins to suspect that Blue Thunder is more than has been disclosed.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Sure.

I remember when this picture came out and how everyone went apeshit over two things...how badass the helicopter was...


and the naked yoga chick!



Funny story. A couple of years ago I was helping run a major yoga internet retail site and I was looking for some updated copy and pictures for a particular DVD we sold and one of the pictures Google spat up was from this movie. Now I hadn't seen this since the mid-80s but that scene was one of two things that stuck with me. Naturally, I had a renewed interest to see the movie again. It turns out the lady in question is the yoga superstar, Anna Forrest. This went over huge at the office. For a brief moment, I was everybody's hero. Good times....good times.

The movie itself is fun. It's got a great cast (sadly, it was Warren Oates's last movie before he died but he sure was a lot of fun in this), the special effects are very well done, it's got some great action scenes, a GREAT ending and of course it's got a badass helicopter and the naked yoga chick. I am so going to get my OM on! Namaste, mutha fuckas!