Why Is Everyone So Angry These Days?
Have you felt it lately?
That low hum of tension everywhere: in the supermarket car park, at the post office, in the way people snap online over the smallest things. We’re a society with clenched jaws and balled fists, and half the time, we don’t even know who we’re angry at. It’s like everyone’s waiting for someone to bump their trolley so they can finally let it all out.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think we’re mad at the person in front of us. We’re mad at the people who let us down. The ones who told us to trust them, then disappeared. The ones who promised safety, then forgot us.
Governments. Systems. Institutions. Even families.
That kind of betrayal doesn’t always look like rage ... at first. Sometimes it looks like numbness. Sometimes it looks like silence. And then, all at once, it explodes.
A while ago, I rewatched an old film from 1977 called Rolling Thunder. It’s not widely known, but it should be. Quentin Tarantino called it one of his all-time favourites, and you can see why. It’s raw, rough-edged, and so layered it feels like peeling back scar tissue.
The story follows Major Charles Rane (William Devane), a Vietnam POW who comes home to a world that’s moved on. He’s given medals and handshakes, but no one really wants to know what he’s been through. His wife’s left him. His son barely knows him. And then things get worse. Much worse.
He’s pushed too far .... and what comes out isn’t just revenge. It’s vengeance.
And that’s when it hit me: this film isn’t about war. It’s about what happens after the war. It’s about the kind of pain you can’t explain to people who’ve never felt it. It’s about the dog who finally lashes out after years of being caged and abused.
And maybe - just maybe - it’s a reflection of what a lot of people are feeling right now.
Now, I won’t spoil too much, but here’s the gist:
Major Charles Rane returns to San Antonio after seven years in a Vietnamese POW camp. He’s hailed as a hero, given a silver dollar for every day he was imprisoned. But the world he comes back to? It’s moved on without him. His wife’s fallen for the local cop. His son barely knows him. He’s celebrated in public, abandoned in private.
And then it gets worse.
A gang shows up, looking for those silver dollars. What follows is a brutal home invasion, the kind that leaves no one the same, if they survive at all.
But here’s where it gets interesting: Rane doesn’t just seek revenge. He almost welcomes it. As if the pain validates something deep inside him, some part that never came home from that prison camp. He teams up with his old war mate, Johnny Vohden (a young, grim-faced Tommy Lee Jones), and they go hunting.
Or maybe they were always going to.
That’s the thing about this film... it’s not just about what happens, but what was always waiting to happen. Rane doesn’t scream. He doesn’t cry. He sharpens his hook-hand and loads the shotgun. There’s a quiet inevitability to it, and it gets under your skin.
Rane was like an animal that has had enough. Pushed too far, scarred, caged ... and finally, he lashes out. Not because of that last wound, but because of all the ones that came before it. It’s something only those who’ve been broken can really understand. That sharp outpouring of vengeance. Not justice. Not rage. Just…I've had enough.
But Rolling Thunder isn’t just about revenge: it’s about what happens when society turns the page before the story's really over. Rane and Vohden are treated like characters from a finished war. Medals handed out, tick the box, move along. Weekly chats with a counsellor. Parades and plaques. But underneath? They’re still in it. Still trapped in the jungle. Still fighting ghosts no one else can see.
And maybe that’s why the film feels so relevant now.
Because everywhere I go lately, I sense it...that low, humming rage. It’s in the supermarket queue, the carpark, the online comments. You bump into someone’s trolley and they look ready to explode. But it’s not really you they’re angry at. You’re just the face of something deeper.
We’re not fighting the cashier. Or the neighbour. We’re fighting whoever hurt us first. In fact, the home invasion and the pursuit of the Mexican gang were inevitable. It could have been anyone. Much like Michael Douglas in his film " Falling Down. " When you have been pushed too far, it is not the cashier or the thug that you are fighting, it is the enemy who FIRST hurt you.
Maybe that’s the echo of lockdowns and mandates and being told to stay silent, smile, comply. No, we didn’t suffer like soldiers. But we got a taste. And for some people; those who were already on the edge, it was enough to snap the thread.
The difference between revenge and vengeance is subtle, but important.
Revenge is personal. It’s raw. Emotional. “You hurt me, now I hurt you.”
Vengeance? That runs deeper. It’s about justice, yes, but also betrayal. Abandonment. A desire to set something right, even when we know it can’t be fixed.
Rolling Thunder wasn’t just about silver dollars or dead thugs. It was about a war that didn’t end when the shooting stopped. About men who were paraded on stage, then shoved off it when the lights dimmed. About fury that simmers quietly, until something lights the match.
And that’s what I think we’re seeing now. All around us.
Not thugs in cowboy hats, but something worse:
The slow violence of being forgotten. Of feeling like what you endured didn’t matter. That you’re just a line in someone’s policy document, filed under “no further action.”
Because the truth is, people haven’t forgotten.
Not the lockdowns. Not the mandates. Not the forced compliance dressed up as safety. They haven’t forgotten the gaslighting, the censorship, the threats to their jobs and freedoms. They did what they were told. They stayed home. They got the jab. They missed funerals and held dying loved ones over video calls instead of in their arms.
And now, as the dust settles, they’re being told to move on ... as if none of it happened. But it did happen. And people are angry. Not because they want to stay stuck in the past, but because no one has ever said, “We were wrong. We’re sorry.” And even that is not enough. We want justice.
Until that day comes - if it ever does - the fury will keep simmering. And like Rane, many will walk through life with that quiet, coiled tension just beneath the surface, waiting for the next match to drop.
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