Thunder Road – Review

Ooof. And now for some awkward comic kidney shots from Jim Cummings. At Brenda Amelia Arnaud’s funeral, her son Officer James, or Jim, Arnaud (Cummings) fumbles with batteries in his pink boombox to prepare. The speech is… not so hot. Grief does play a major part of it, but Jim clearly has issues with his thought train.

Setting the stage for the grief ridden dramatic comedic meltdown to come over the next 90 minutes, Thunder Road presents just that. Jim is a cop, a dad, and a man who just lost his mother. He spirals and then some, while failing to control his emotions, and is entirely petty on top of it all. There is plenty of comedic value to all of this however and much of it is played to exaggeration and to the detriment of Officer Arnaud’s situational exasperation.

There’s not too much point in going into any plot points beyond the opening. The man’s life is a borderline trainwreck. He is mid divorce from an unfaithful wife Rosalind (DeBoer), but still loves his daughter Crystal (Farr) and gets along well with his cop partner Officer Nate Lewis (Robinson). Will anything go right or will he suffer a breakdown?

If you are familiar with Jim Cummings’ brand of comedy then you can likely withstand his barrage of awkwardness and get plenty of laughs out of this. If this is your first venture into this guy’s works, strap in and give it a try. You should know within 15 minutes or so whether or not this will work at all.

The film walks a tightrope of serious life observational complex drama and grating comedy. It’s meant to make you feel a bit icky at times or push your buttons a bit, but also bring up emotions here and there, too. Acting is both silly, but also realistic and sweet at times, or mentally unbalanced. It is a lesser budget film which does not impact the story. Most of the film rings true and appears genuine. Yes, the comedy may rub you the wrong way at times, or its plunges into realities of stress or grief, and you may feel secondhand embarrassment. Jim and Crystal have a sweet relationship at least, even if he is a few steps behind his daughter in her needs.