Blue Thunder

Overview:

Officer Frank Murphy, an experienced LAPD helicopter pilot, is given command of the advanced new \"Blue Thunder\" chopper. But he begins to wonder why the LAPD would need a helicopter so powerful and why it is such a secret.

Released: 1983-02-05

Duration: 01:49:00

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller

Keywords: Psychopath, Automatic Gunfire, Police Officer Killed, ...

Director: John Badham

Writer: Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby

Cast: Warren Oates, Anthony James, Joe Santos, ...

Director: John Badham

Writer: Dan O'Bannon Don Jakoby

Cast: Warren Oates Anthony James Joe Santos Roy Scheider Daniel Stern Thomas Rosales Jr. Candy Clark Malcolm McDowell James Read James Murtaugh Paul Roebling David Sheiner Ed Bernard Phil Feldman Mario Machado

Genre: Action Crime Drama Thriller

Keywords: Psychopath Automatic Gunfire Police Officer Killed Dying Young Police Surveillance Totalitarian Tendencies Los Angeles Police Department American Police Officer Test Pilot Helicopter Pilot Police Helicopter Surveillance Airplane Shot Down Aviation Car Chase Acrobatic Flight Automatic Weapon Los Angeles, California Lapd Helicopter Pilot Helicopter Gunship Helicopter Crash Advanced Technology Observation Darkness Aircraft Cockpit Violence Power Explosion Chase Escape Sociopath Corruption Prototype Payphone Aircraft Pilot Rotorcraft Man Tied Up Prologue Control Armed Robbery Arrest Nudity Female Nudity Rear Nudity Chased By Police Naked Yoga Air Support Unit Shootout Shot To Death Slow Motion Shot Flashback Pushed From A Helicopter War Flashback Vietnam Vet War Veteran Ptsd Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Grounded Pilot Pontiac Trans Am Answering Machine Message Henchman Telephone Call Job Suspension Prototype Helicopter Weapons Testing Test Site Engine Failure Crash Landing Driving Against Traffic Test Flight Code Name Kicked In The Face Run Over By A Car Dead Body Crime Scene Revolver Airforce Colonel Drive In Theatre Los Angeles River Minigun Pulled Over By The Police F 16 Fighter Jet Shooting Down An Airplane Aerial Combat 1980s Liquor Store Reference To Bugs Bunny City Commissioner Pager Freight Train Political Corruption Director Cameo Police Chief Flying Upside Down Male Aviator Military Veteran Surface To Air Attack Aircraft Weapons Fire Assault Rifle Speeding Vehicle Missile Attack Police Aircraft Gunship Car Pursuit Warplane Police Rotorcraft Prototype Aircraft Firearm United States Of America Speeding Car Policeman Handheld Weapon Gun Air To Surface Attack Exploding Building Police Car Ranged Weapon Handgun Helicopter Cockpit Two Member Team Police Vehicle Weapon Night Observer Male Helicopter Pilot Police Motorcycle Projectile Weapon Interrogation By Torture Exploding Aircraft Nighttime Uniformed Police Officer Motor Vehicle Moustached Male Bus Missile Police Officer Vehicle Mustached Man Torture Military Aeroplane Law Enforcement Officer Motorcycle Exploding Rotorcraft Memory North America Jet Aircraft Ready Room Slow Motion Colonel Demonstration Military Aircraft Interrogation Physical Torture Fighter Jet Villain Thermal Imaging Slow Motion Scene Male Colonel Veteran Aviator Sports Car Child Gunfire Male Veteran Falling Debris Office City Dumpster Eavesdropping Boy Live Action Ends With A Freeze Frame Wound Police Action Female Pedal Pumping Police Train Vietnam War Veteran Cult Film Exploding Car Training Evil Man Hiding Place Murder Of A Police Officer Animosity Attack Helicopter Recording The Villain Bound And Gagged Color In Title Vietnam Flashback Tv News Target Shooting Sabotage Peeping Tom Murder Loop Jet Fighter Helicopter Shot Down Helicopter Chase Heat Seeking Missile Exploding Helicopter Hit By A Train Security Gatling Gun Los Angeles Storm Drain Conspiracy Title Spoken By Character Overhearing Sex 7 Eleven Store Pubic Hair Female Pubic Hair Ptsd Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Freeze Frame During Closing Credits Female Rear Nudity Nude Yoga Female Topless Nudity Nude Woman Two Word Title

Description

Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) is a \"Metropolitan Police Department\" air support division pilot and troubled Vietnam War veteran with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). His newly assigned observer is novice Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern). The two patrol Los Angeles at night and give assistance to police forces on the ground.

Murphy is instructed to attend a sunrise demonstration in the Mojave Desert at \"Pinkville\", and is selected to pilot an advanced helicopter, informally called \"The Special\" and nicknamed \"Blue Thunder\", during an evaluation exercise. It is a military-style combat aircraft intended for police use in surveillance and against possible large-scale civic disobedience during the then-upcoming 1984 Olympic games. With powerful armament, and other accoutrements such as thermal infrared scanners, unidirectional microphones and cameras, built-in mobile telephone, computer and modem, and a U-Matic Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), Blue Thunder appears to be a formidable tool in the war on crime. Murphy notes wryly that with enough of these helicopters \"you could run the whole damn country.\"

When the death of city councilwoman Diana McNeely turns out to be more than just a random murder, Murphy begins his own covert investigation. He discovers that a subversive action group is intending instead to use Blue Thunder in a military role to quell disorder under the project codename T.H.O.R. (\"Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response\"), and is secretly eliminating political opponents to advance its agenda.

Murphy suspects the involvement of his old wartime nemesis, former United States Army Colonel F.E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), the primary test pilot for Blue Thunder and someone who felt Murphy was \"unsuitable\" for the program. Murphy and Lymangood use Blue Thunder to record a meeting between Cochrane and the other government officials which would implicate them in the conspiracy, but Cochrane looks outside and sees Blue Thunder and realizes what has happened. After landing, Lymangood secures the tape and hides it, but is captured upon returning to his home, interrogated, and then killed while trying to escape. Murphy hijacks Blue Thunder and arranges to have his girlfriend Kate (Candy Clark) retrieve the tape and deliver it to the local news station, using the helicopter to thwart her pursuers. Kate arrives at the news station, but is almost captured by one of the conspirators; the reporter Kate was sent to find intercepts Kate and gets the tape back, while the conspirator is knocked unconscious by a security guard.

Two Air National Guard F-16 fighters are deployed to deal with Murphy, but he manages to shoot one down and evade the other. However, in the process, one missile destroys a barbecue stand in Little Tokyo and a second impacts ARCO Plaza. The operation is then suspended by the mayor. Cochrane, disobeying orders to stand down, ambushes Blue Thunder in a heavily armed Hughes 500 helicopter, and after a tense battle, Murphy is able to shoot him down after executing a 360° loop through use of Blue Thunder\'s turbine boost function. Murphy then destroys Blue Thunder by landing it in front of an approaching freight train.

In the meantime, the tape is made public and, as a result, the conspirators are arrested.