A young ne'er-do-well, Lightfoot, steals a car. Elsewhere, an assassin attempts to shoot a preacher, who is delivering a sermon at his pulpit. The preacher escapes on foot. Lightfoot, who happens to be driving by, inadvertently rescues the preacher by running over his pursuer and giving the preacher a lift. They steal a series of cars, patronize prostitutes, and escape another attempt on their lives by two men. Lightfoot learns that the "minister" John Doherty is a notorious
bank robber, known as "the Thunderbolt" for his use of an
Oerlikon 20 mm cannon to break into a safe, who has been hiding out in the guise of a clergyman following the robbery of a Montana bank. Thunderbolt tells Lightfoot that the ones trying to kill him are members of his gang, who mistakenly think Thunderbolt double-crossed them. Thunderbolt is the only member of the gang who knows where the loot is hidden. Lightfoot and he journey to Warsaw, Montana, to retrieve the money hidden in an old
one-room school. They discover the schoolhouse has been replaced by a brand-new school. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are abducted by the men who were pursuing them — the vicious Red Leary and the gentle Eddie Goody. After being forced to drive to a remote location, Thunderbolt wins a fistfight with Red, after which Thunderbolt explains that he never betrayed the gang. Lightfoot proposes another heist, namely, robbing the same company as before, but without the gang's electronics expert, Dunlop, the man Lightfoot hit with his car. In the city where the bank is located, the men find jobs to raise money for needed equipment while they plan the heist. When the robbery begins, Thunderbolt and Red hold the vault manager at gunpoint in his home and force him to reveal the access codes to the outer doors of the safe. Lightfoot,
cross-dressing as a woman, distracts the
Western Union office's security guard, deactivates the ensuing alarm, and is picked up by Goody. Like the first heist, Thunderbolt uses an antiaircraft cannon to breach the vault's wall, and the gang escapes with the loot. They flee in the car, with Red and Goody in the trunk, to a nearby
drive-in movie in progress. After hearing a sneeze from the trunk and seeing a shirttail protruding from the trunk lid, the theater manager suspects someone is hiding in the trunk to avoid paying and so goes to investigate. As wailing police cars begin to close in on the drive-in theater and as the theater manager gets nearer, Red becomes increasingly agitated and Thunderbolt drives out of the drive-in, encountering police at the exit. During the ensuing chase, Goody is shot as the police open fire on the vehicle. Red, callous as ever, throws him out of the trunk onto a dirt road, where he dies. Red then forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to stop the car. He pistol whips them both, knocking them unconscious, and kicks Lightfoot in the head and body several times, severely injuring him. Red takes off with the loot in the getaway car, but is again pursued by police, who shoot Red several times, causing him to lose control of the car and crash through the window of a department store, where he is attacked and killed by the store's
watchdog. Recovered from the beating, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot make their way toward the highway, though Lightfoot has begun to display signs of internal injury due to Red having kicked him in the head. They hitch a ride the next morning and are dropped off near Warsaw, Montana, where they stumble upon the one-room schoolhouse, which is now a historical monument on the side of a highway, having been moved there from its original location after the first heist. As the two men retrieve the stolen money, Lightfoot's behavior becomes erratic as a result of the beating. Thunderbolt buys a new
Cadillac convertible with cash, something Lightfoot said he had always wanted to do, and picks up his waiting partner, who is gradually losing control of the left side of his body. As they drive away celebrating their success with cigars, Lightfoot, in obvious distress, tells Thunderbolt in a slurred voice how proud he is of their accomplishments, then slumps over and dies. Thunderbolt snaps his cigar in half, as it is no longer a celebration, and with his dead partner beside him, drives off down the
Interstate and into the distance. ==Cast==