Thunderstruck – The Movie on DVD Movie description The Australian comedy THUNDERSTRUCK is a story of male bonding through rock ‘n roll and a road trip across the Outback. Five buddies–Ronnie, Sonny, Sam, Ben, and Lloyd–all become friends because of their love of the hard rock band AC/DC. After a fun-filled night at one of the groups’ concerts, the guys narrowly miss a fatal accident, and become convinced their devotion to the band saved them. Many years later, they’ve grown apart, but each one remembers the pledge made that night: to bury the first one of them to die by the grave of AC/DC frontman Bon Scott. When Ronnie is killed by a freak lightning bolt, the four remaining friends must reunite to take his ashes across Australia to Scott’s gravesite, encountering a series of unusual characters along the way, and rediscovering the little things that had made them friends to begin with.
Customer Review: Ashes to Ashes
Though I’m Australian, I’m not really that much of a fan of Australian film, or AC/DC. Still, I like movies about rock music, so I had a look at “Thunderstruck”. It’s a little bit better than I expect, but I wasn’t really expecting that much.
The film is about five best mates from Sydney who love AC/DC and are in their own hard rock garage band. They go to a concert of theirs in 1991 and have a great time. While admiring a poster of Bon Scott, the late AC/DC member, the young guys avoid a run in with a car. They take it as a sign, take down the poster of Bon, and make a promise that if any of them does die, then the others would bury them next to Bon Scott in Fremantle, Western Australia. Twelve years later, their band and their friendship is all but broken up. One’s now a drug dealer, one works in a supermarket, one still lives with his parents recording demos, one used to be a bouncer, and one’s dead, hit by lighting. Yes, you could almost say he was “Thunderstruck”! The guys see this as a sign and remember their promise, reuniting, nabbing the ashes of their mate from his vain ex-wife and head across thousands of kilometres of outback towards Fremantle, to unite their dead friend with his hero. But will they make it?
As in many other Australian films, there are many cameo appearances from Australian celebrities. There’s rock group Killing Heidi (playing themselves), there’s Quentin Kenihan the wheelchair bound Australian director (who plays a paralympian with road rage), and there’s late night host Roy Slaven (who plays a petrol station owner). There may have been some others I didn’t recognize in there too.
One of the reasons I don’t like Australian film that much is the way everything looks like it was recorded ten years before it actually was. Everything looks so old in this film, which works for the bits set in 1991, but not so much for the modern day bits. I don’t know what it is, maybe the lighting or something, but a lot of the locations look all dingy and depressing (like the supermarket where one of the characters works). Australia doesn’t exactly look like that, and its not fun or enjoyable picturing a place that does. They give this look to so many Australian films, and it annoys me.
Still, the outback scenes were nicely filmed. The comedy was all right, too. There’s a lot of playing on the Australian “bogan” stereotype (kind of like the Australian equivalent of America’s “trailer trash”, folk who are really rough around the edges). The dialogue, like so often in Australian films/TV/etc seems a little too unnatural at times.
For fans of AC/DC, there are a few references to the band and their music, but not as many as you may expect. It’s not so much a film about AC/DC or its fans as it is about friendship, mateship and promises.
Special features include a commentary, deleted scenes and a making of featurette. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Worth at least a little look for AC/DC fans, I suppose. If you’re looking for an Australian comedy film, I’d recommend “The Castle” or “The Dish” instead. You get the Australian quirkiness, but you also get a meatier plot too.
Customer Review: Good for the AC/DC fan
I think maybe only an obsesive AC/DC fan will enjoy this flick. It was a little slow to start, but once it got going I really enjoyed it. The humor is more English, some people may not find it funny, but I laughed out loud for most of it. I definalty recomend it, but you may want to consider renting it first before adding it to your collection.
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