Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

A car arrives at a remote church in rural Montana.  The driver steps out and enters the church.  Upon seeing the preacher (Clint Eastwood), the driver pulls out a gun and starts shooting.  The preacher ducks, dodges, and runs for his life across a field.  Meanwhile, Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) walks to a used car dealership and steals a white Pontiac Trans Am.  On the road, he almost runs over a preacher but swerves to instead hit a man with a gun.  The preacher climbs into the car and the pair speed away.  Over the next few days, they become friends.  The preacher admits to being Thunderbolt, a notorious bank robber.  The man who was trying to kill him had been in on the heist and believed he had been cheated.  The same was true for both Red Leary (George Kennedy) and Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis), who have been pursuing the pair through Montana.  Eventually, Leary and Goody get the drop on Thunderbolt, but he explains that he did not cheat them.  With the money from their previous job gone, the four decide to pull a new job.

The first half of the movie is a series of random scenes that don't advance the plot.  It's a buddy road show that is regularly interrupted by a storm of bullets from the murderous Red.  Early in the movie, Lightfoot woos Catherine Bach - who would later gain fame as Daisy Duke on the Dukes of Hazzard - but she vanishes from the movie in the next scene.  Gary Busey has a brief bit as a sprinkler installer.  Only the main four actors have a role of any note, everyone else getting little more than cameo parts.  It is a random patchwork of a movie that often doesn't feel like it is going anywhere.  What was the point of catching a ride with the crazy man who had a racoon in the front seat and a score of rabbits in the trunk?  Why the woman standing naked in the window while Lightfoot is working on the yard?  How did Red keep finding them?  You would think he had a tracker on them, but this is 1973!

Jeff Bridges is quite good as a full of himself youth, often stealing scenes with his infectious charm.  He makes an excellent foil for Clint's seen-it-all veteran.  The antagonism between Bridges and George Kennedy is quite well-done.  Really, the chemistry among the principals is very good and is the strong point of the movie.

Overall, it is just okay.