Thunderheart

Factually based drama about an FBI investigation on a Sioux reservation. A part-Sioux FBI agent is dispatched against his will to work on the case and, despite himself, gradually tunes in to his cultural heritage. He begins to question his superior’s conclusions, and he teams up with a tribal police officer who provides proof of the prime suspect’s innocence., Factually based drama about an FBI investigation on a Sioux reservation. A part-Sioux FBI agent is dispatched against his will to work on the case and, despite himself, gradually tunes in to his cultural heritage. He begins to question his superior’s conclusions, and he teams up with a tribal police officer who maintains that the prime suspect in the investigation is innocent., During an investigation at a reservation, an FBI agent learns about his Sioux roots., During an investigation at a reservation, an FBI agent (Val Kilmer) learns about his Sioux roots., A part-Sioux FBI agent is despatched to an Ogala Sioux reservation to work on a murder investigation and is awakened to his cultural heritage. Ray Levoi arrives at the murder scene to find the FBI’s other man on the case already has a prime suspect. But Ray begins to doubt the evidence, especially when Walter Crow Horse, a tribal police officer, provides proof of the man’s innocence., Eastern urbanite Ray Levoi is ordered to South Dakota to help Indian affairs veteran Frank “Cooch” Coutelle apprehend a killer because the Fbi thinks his part-Native American background will be a public relations asset during the investigation. Initially the younger agent defers to Cooch’s expertise in dealing with the locals. It gradually becomes evident, however, that there has been a severe abuse of authority on the Pine Ridge Reservation and that Cooch’s prime suspect, a leader of the Oglala traditionalist movement, Jimmy Looks Twice, may be the victim of a setup. The forces of pro-government tribal president Jack Milton and his Guardians of the Oglala Nation are countered by one tenacious tribal police officer, Walter Crow Horse. Crow Horse leads Ray to pieces of evidence that make him begin to question Cooch’s reading of the case against Jimmy. Crow Horse also introduces him to Dartmouth-educated schoolteacher and activist Maggie Eagle Bear and medicine man Grandpa Sam Reaches. The former will serve as his conscience and the latter as his guide through a spiritual reawakening that provokes a dangerous re-examination of loyalties for the federal agent., Actor Robert De Niro started a production company to make films just like this one: stories which were unpopular with the establishment and which are unlikely to make a big splash at the box-office. Even so, this is a first-class production, and the filmmakers were the first to receive permission to film on the Pine Ridge (Sioux) Reservation in South Dakota, likely due to director Michael Apted’s having previously made an accurate and sensitive documentary about Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier’s case, Incident at Oglala. The film did exactly as well as expected at the box-office but has since assumed greater importance as one of the tiny number of “mainstream” movies which faithfully and respectfully illuminate Native American issues. In the story, loosely based on the earlier documentary, Ray Levoi (Val Kilmer) is an ambitious up-and-coming FBI agent in the 1970s with great career prospects. The one thing he will not tolerate is any reference to his half-Indian heritage. As far as he is concerned, his loyalties and culture identify him with the government and his white mother. He is extremely touchy about anything to do with his father, who was an alcoholic full-blooded Sioux. However, the FBI wants to take advantage of his half-Indian blood to mend fences in a politically sensitive murder investigation, and it sends him exactly where he doesn’t want to go. Further, he is widely advertised as being Indian, though he knows virtually nothing about his heritage and has renounced it to the best of his ability. Once on the reservation, he becomes deeply involved in a truly messy state of affairs and is drawn into situations where he is forced to confront his background, native spirituality, and the duplicity of the government and its allies within the tribe. Despite his consistent prickliness about his heritage, his heart is in the right place, and the reservation’s sheriff (Graham Greene) and a wise spiritual elder (Chief Ted Thin Elk) patiently lead their unwilling FBI pupil on a soul-wrenching wild goose chase which paradoxically takes him straight to the heart of the matter.