Sudden Thunder (1990) User Reviews

It's probably Andrea Lamatsch's finest hour, and for that alone, it's worth seeing.

[tarbosh22000 · 7/10 · 16 April 2021]

Patricia Merrill (Lamatsch) is a Miami-based policewoman. When she gets the news that her father has died in a car crash, she travels to the small town of Wilbury, which is presumably in Florida, to settle his affairs. While there, she uncovers a small town conspiracy that involves new sheriff Mike Gray (Monty) (Patricia's father was the old sheriff).

Apparently, most of the Wilbury police force is involved in drug running and Patricia stumbles on to that fact. Sensing that she needs help and that she can't face this threat alone, her buddies from Miami P. D. follow her to Wilbury. They also team up with friend of the Merrill family Jake Stokes (Carter) and they all band together to fight the corruption and baddies. Will they be hearing the SUDDEN THUNDER?

Sudden Thunder gets off to a great start with Andrea Lamatsch doing a full nightclub performance on stage with a band, then getting involved in a shootout with some baddies. After she shoots people wearing an evening dress, the musicians onstage continue playing the song, which is far louder than the dialogue people are then saying. They're almost drowned out completely. We knew then that we were going to like Sudden Thunder.

It was an inspired choice by the filmmakers to make Lamatsch the main star and heroine of the film. That's certainly what we would have done if we were in charge. To cast someone with an almost-impenetrable German accent who looks like a model as a Miami cop was an inspired casting choice. All the dialogue scenes with Lamatsch are gold. In the second half of the movie, when it's mainly her and her buddies running around dodging explosions, perhaps counterintuitively, things slow down for the viewer. Lamatsch carries the movie, so when she's not front and center, things suffer.

If other action stars with accents could make it big - everyone from Schwarzenegger to Van Damme - why not Lamatsch? That's what we always say. She's certainly easier to look at than they are. But it appears that's not the path she chose. Besides her, other people are in the cast as well, believe it or not. Mike Monty is here as the evil sheriff, and Curtis Carter stands out as Jake Stokes. He's the guy with the cabin in the woods where Patricia goes to recuperate. He's a charismatic guy that the audience really likes.

Of course, there's the time-honored barfight, and our heroes walk/run away from a grounded exploding airplane. The "corruption and drug running in a small town" plot has been seen many times before, notably in The Devastator (1986), among others. The second half of Sudden Thunder is notably blander than the first half. Director David Hunt (AKA David Hung) later went on to make Triple Impact (1992), and Lamatsch did Blood Ring (1991). But here they joined their forces and the results are generally good, especially in the earlier sections of the film.

Sudden Thunder was released by AIP on VHS and is typical of their releases in two ways: the people on the front of the box are not in the movie, and the tape is now rare. If you can find a copy for not a lot of money, which is not an easy thing to do these days, it's worth picking up. But it's not really worth high online prices. That being said, there is plenty to enjoy with Sudden Thunder. It's probably Andrea Lamatsch's finest hour, and for that alone, it's worth seeing.

Florida as played by the Philippines

[udar55 · 6/10 · 19 May 2022]

A female cop (Andrea Lamatsch) from Florida returns to her rural small town after her sheriff father is killed. Turns out the new sheriff (Mike Monty!) and the mayor are up to some major bad dealings and try to wipe her out too. When she doesn't show back up in Florida, four of her cop buddies head there and an all out war erupts. This actioner pretends they are filming in Florida and Georgia, but I suspect it was all done in the Philippines. The big tip off? No, not the sprawling mountains, jungles or rock quarries. It is the fact that Monty is seen in the flick alongside John Ladalski and Nick Nicholson. German actress Lamatsch will have you thinking of Renee Harmon as she dewivers zee dialogue with zee zame Cher-man ack-zent. The finale (at a big jungle plantation) is actually pretty freakin' insane.

This thunder is not followed by lightning

[Zantara Xenophobe · 1/10 · 20 September 2015]

*This review contains some plot SPOILERS

Sometimes, you just have to wonder why a movie gets made. In the 80's, there were a lot of cheap action movies that were hurriedly produced to cash in on the VHS craze when the new video rental outlets were starving for titles to put on their shelves. But when the 90's came around, the demand was waning. A cheap action movie with an even cheaper title (a very common trait…just slap some title on there that sounds tough) like Sudden Thunder doesn't seem like it should exist. And it REALLY should NOT exist.

In a small hick town, the local sheriff is driving along the road one day when a gang of local thugs runs him off the road, slathers him in gasoline, and blow him to bits. His daughter Patricia (Andrea Lamatsch) is a Miami cop and immediately goes to the town to find out what happened. Everyone is tight-lipped to her questions. She reports this to her Miami cop buddies and tells them to stay put because she will handle this. Her cop buddies immediately ignore this command and head over to the small town to help out. Good thing, too, since, as soon as Patricia goes to the scene of the crime, she is jumped by the thugs who attempt to rape and murder her. She is left for dead but is rescued by old family friend Jake (Ernie Santana) who nurses her back to health and acts as eyes and ears in town, reporting back information to her when her friends show up and are instantly pegged as troublemakers by the local law. The Miami cops are framed for murder and end up hiding out with Patricia and Jake while they try to figure out how to clear their name. They realize they have to first learn why there are shady dealings going on, and soon discover that the mayor is in cahoots with a Miami drug lord.

I imagine this woeful plot is enough to have caused most of you to quit reading and move on to something better to do with your time. For those still left, perhaps you're thinking, "This doesn't sound so bad." Well, you are wrong. Where to begin? For starters, you have ineptitude behind the camera. The pacing is unbelievably slow, with scene after scene just lurching along. Besides a few lame fight scenes and stand-offs, the "action" doesn't' take place until the movie has been on for an hour. And when you do finally get it, there is no flare whatsoever. The entire last half hour is one long, never-ending gunfight, not stopping until the very last second with what is possibly the most abrupt ending I have ever seen. You also have ineptitude in post-production. More than once, the largely inappropriate background music (listen to the melancholy music in the bar --- you won't believe your eardrums) is so loud that it drowns out anything the characters are saying. It's a totally unforgivable mistake. On the other hand, if the whole movie had been drowned in lousy music, it would have been a saving grace, because the dialogue is utterly hopeless. And, even if it wasn't, the ineptitude in front of the camera would demolish it. Every single character delivers his or her lines with excruciating pauses between sentences. And when one character talks after another, the pause is unbearable. Not that you want them to unpause, as the personality-less actors give no gusto to their line reading whatsoever. The new sheriff, who looks like the love child of John Carradine and Clint Eastwood, speaks through pursed lips. Lamatsch is about as vapid as they come. She speaks with a heavy French accent, something which demands an explanation as she was supposed to have grown up in the small hick town. This is an explanation that we are never given. She is very hard to understand but you can eventually figure out what she says because the dialogue is so routine that deducing her lines is a piece of cake. One might wonder why they cast her until you realize she is gives the best performance in the entire group. And considering how lousy she is, that is really saying something for the rest of the cast.

I just now realized another thing the title could describe: an unexpected fart in an elevator from the person standing next to you. This seems an appropriate comparison to this film. Zantara's score: 1 out of 10.