Blue Thunder is a specially modified helicopter. It is for police work, but is armed and designed to counter street insurgencies. It's makers want to show what it will do, but have to train a Los Angeles Police pilot Frank Murphy, to fly and use it in order to allow it to operate in the city. Murphy and the project pilot have differences going back to Vietnam. The conflict between them continues to heat up as Murphy begins to suspect that Blue Thunder is more than has been disclosed.


Books with substantial mentioning of Blue Thunder

James Robert Parish
The Great Cop Pictures
Metuchen, N.J., & London, 1990

Frank N. Magill (ed.)
Magill's Cinema Annual 1984, A Survey of 1983 Films
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1984

Books with an entry on Blue Thunder

Larry Langman & David Ebner
Encyclopedia of American Spy Films
New York & London, 1990

Reviews

Kenneth M. Chanko, Blue Thunder, in: Films in Review, vol. 34, 1983 pp. 303-304