Michael Apted

(In French, On Cable TV, January 2020) On the one hand, there’s something admirable in seeing Thunderheart tackle the deplorable state of native reserves in the United States by setting a murder mystery within its borders. Our way into this setting is done through the dispatch of an FBI agent of mixed ethnicity (Val Kilmer, who is also of mixed ethnicity) but no cultural affiliation to native causes. As he gradually investigates the murder, he also gains an appreciation for his own origins. Standard Hollywood character development, but handled well, especially within the context of an unvarnished depiction of reserve living in the early 1990s—not that things have changed very much since then. Director Michael Apted makes effective use of helicopter-mounted cameras to give a good sense of space, action and the neighbouring landscapes—an essential when setting a film in the Badlands. While Kilmer ably headlines, the highlight here is once again Graham Greene as a local agent. Still, this could have been a better film: Thunderheart remains very much the story of a non-native protagonist exploring “the other,” and not a story told from within the native community. As revelatory as it could be in the early 1990s, it does feel limited today at a time when movies increasingly reflect diverse voices from their own perspectives. I liked it, but I can see how we’ve gone a bit beyond that.