Thunderheart is based on a true story from the documentary "Incident at Oglala" written by Michael Apted the Director of the film.

Ray Levoi (Val Kilmer) a part Sioux FBI Agent who is sent to an Indian Reserve in South Dakota to assist in a homicide investigation. It becomes apparent very early on that Ray has no real understanding of the plight of the local Indian population and is as much a straight down the line FBI agent as you could find. In fact he has been sent to this particular case because of his background and the implication that the local people will communicate better with him because of this.

Ray finds himself in a conflicting situation where he does not see eye to eye with his partner Frank (Sam Shepherd) who believes the killer is a local anti government activist – Jimmy Looks Twice. On the other hand the local law enforcement – Walter Crow Horse (Graham Greene) has a very different perspective on the situation and is quite illusive in forthcoming with the information the FBI need. Walter seems to dislike the fact that Ray has no sympathy for his indigenous background and does his best to show him other aspects of the situation.

Ray is helped a little by a local schoolteacher and of course the medicine man who can see that he does have some strong Indian Blood.

The transfer is generally quite sharp and clear and the colour palette is rendered quite beautifully with some nice rich and yet still very natural desert colours, that have been matched with good skin tones and vibrant colours where required.

The main problem with this transfer is the presence on several occasions of MPEG artefacting. Including some pixelisation in scenes with little depth of field. There is also some noticeable blurring noise in the opening credits.

Film artefacts were better than I expected and only a few small dust flecks and marks could be seen.

Surround effects were a little on the scarce side and were limited to some directional effects and enhancement to the score with a little ambience.

There is of course no subwoofer input and the centre is very much dialogue driven throughout.