Los Angeles, California. Officer Murphy, a veteran Metropolitan Police helicopter pilot suffering from severe trauma due to his harsh experiences during the Vietnam War, and Lymangood, his resourceful new partner, are tasked with testing an advanced and heavily armed experimental chopper known as Blue Thunder.
Practical Effects
They built TWO working gunship helicopters and flew them through actual LA traffic.
Cinematography
Helicopter POV shots that invented the modern aerial action sequence.
Acting
Roy Scheider's thousand-yard stare could stop a tank.
Director
John Badham
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Blue Thunder helicopter was so unstable that pilots refused to perform the loop-the-loop maneuver; they faked it with a 1/6 scale radio-controlled model that crashed into a building.
Released months before the LAPD's Daryl Gates expanded helicopter surveillance programs, the film accidentally documented the militarization of policing that would define the next four decades.
US
