Do you enjoy the dusty roads of an Indian Reservation? Or do you enjoy the mystery of a murder? Well in this movie, Thunderheart, it has it all. This movie stars Val Kilmer as a "half breed Sioux (pronounced "sue") Indian" called Ray Levol and his partner Frank Coutelle played by Sam Shepard. It is a exciting movie about a man called Jack Milton played by Fred Ward, he is trying to get the Indians to sell there land to him for Uranium drilling, but the Indians do not know that the reason for his proposal to buy there land is to drill for Uranium.
 
 

Levol (Kilmer) is a police officer in the city he is assigned to a case to apprehend a suspect in a murder. He along with the reservation policeman Walter Crow Horse (played by ) discover Milton's plot which involves Levol's partner. Levol  learns about his Sioux  heritage by many of the Indians on the reservation. One of the elders on the reservation influenced Levol to look back on his heritage. Levol has visions throughout the movie which forces him to look back upon his peoples purpose in the Battle of Wounded Knee. He visits the memorial of Wounded Knee, while Levol was at the memorial he sat in his car and he accidentally feel asleep, while he was asleep he dreamed of him standing in the entrance of the memorial of Wounded Knee and then he was running, he was running from a man on horseback Levol was running with other Indians, but the man only shot him. Levol did not know what the dream was about so he told Crow Horse. Crow Horse thought it was a vision.
 
In the end the Crow Horse and Levol were trapped in the Stronghold which happened to be the place where Milton had started to test drill for the Uranium without the Indians consent. Some of the Indians on the reservation found out why the man wanted there land, they were found face down dead in the desert; which was believed  to prevent there souls from coming back. The rest of the Indians found out the Milton's plot, but did not let Milton know that they knew. Milton found out that Levol and Crow Horse knew what he was up to. He was going to kill them at the strong hold where he trapped them, but the Indians had surrounded the area and forced him to stop from killing them.
 
The Movie was named after a medicine man who died in the battle of wounded knee while he was running for the stronghold. Thunderheart is supposed to be a relative of Levol. An elder called grandpa (played by Chief Ted Thin Elk) told Levol to run for the strong hold as Thunderheart had done; Levol did just that.

300 Indians were shot at Wounded Knee because they were doing a ghost dance which they believed would drive away the white men and bring back the buffalo. For more information on on Wounded Knee and the Sioux Indians please visit the rest of this web site.
 
 Written By: Becky

  George Cassutto's Cyberlearning World: 
http://www.cyberlearning-world.com

     [Lesson Plan of the Day]     [Cassutto Memorial]    [About the Author]    [Search]    [Civics Lesson Plans]