With the sad passing the other day of Val Kilmer, I thought I’d rewatch some of his old films. Rather than picking the obvious ones like TOP GUN, BATMAN FOREVER or THE DOORS, I went for THUNDERHEART. This Neo-Western thriller by British director Michael Apted (COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER; GORILLAS IN THE MIST; the UP series) received lukewarm reviews at the time of its release in 1992 but most critics praised Kilmer’s performance. This seems to have been a pattern with Kilmer’s career. He often outshone the films that he starred in.

In THUNDERHEART, tensions are brewing between two factions on a Native American reservation in South Dakota. One side, known as the Aboriginal Rights Movement (ARM), wants a return to the “old ways”, while the other, which is pro-government, wants to modernize the reservation. After a tribal council member is found shot dead, suspicion falls upon two people – Maggie Eagle Bear (Sheila Tousey), an activist schoolteacher, and Jimmy Looks Twice (John Trudell), the leader of ARM. FBI Agent Ray Levoi (Kilmer), who is half Sioux but has been disconnected from that part of his family history for most of his life, is assigned out of the DC office to go to the reservation to find the murderer and to bring him or her to justice within three days. He is paired up with Agent Frank “Cooch” Coutelle (Sam Shepard, DAYS OF HEAVEN), who is from the Denver office and is a legend amongst the younger agents like Levoi. When the men arrive on the reservation, they are soon met by Walter Crow Horse (Graham Greene, WIND RIVER; DANCES WITH WOLVES), the res’ tribal police officer, who tells them that the dead body had been placed there by the killer. How he knows though, he refuses to say. In the following days, Ray meets with various people on the res in an attempt to find Jimmy who has disappeared. Along the way, he learns that there is more to this factional squabble than meets the eye. He also learns that roots run deeper than you know.

The film begins with a short on-screen prologue letting the viewer know that the story was inspired by real events. In 1975, on the very same reservation where the filming took place, Leonard Peltier, a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) was convicted in the murder of two FBI agents, which he still denies to this day. Interestingly, President Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence to indefinite house arrest just before he left office in January. The story also makes reference to the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 where as many as 300 Lakota people were killed by US Army soldiers. With these two events happening to the same people, it’s small wonder that there is little trust between them and the government.

You don’t have to be a history buff or a mastermind, though, to figure out where this story is going to go after the first twenty minutes but at least Kilmer and Greene make the journey an interesting one. Both actors were riding high on their recent successful performances – Kilmer as Jim Morrison in THE DOORS (another film that was given less praise than its star) and Greene as Kicking Bird in DANCES WITH WOLVES, a role that earned him an Oscar nomination. (He lost out to Joe Pesci in GOODFELLAS.) Apted gives the film a strong sense of place by shooting on location and using actors like Trudell who is an activist himself. Apted may have laid it on a bit thick with the squalor porn though. I’ve never been to a reservation but I do hope that the living conditions have improved since then.

THUNDERHEART is available to rent or buy from all the major streaming services. It’s not a great film but it is a good film and it does give audiences a decent look back at US government-Native American relations at the time. Thanks, Val. We’ll miss you!

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