Tommy (Roger Daltry) starts off life as a normal kid with a single parent. His dad was declared missing during WWII, so he's raised by his mom, Nora (Ann-Margaret). When Tommy is six, his mom meets Frank (Oliver Reed), who she starts seeing. Unfortunately, when he has stayed over one night, Tommy's dad returns from the field to find his wife in bed with another man. Enraged at this intruder, Frank kills Tommy's father in front of Tommy and his mother. Traumatized by this incident, Tommy loses his sight, hearing, and power of speech!
At first, Frank and Nora try normal things to bring Tommy out of his shell, like taking him to the fair, but nothing really works. As Tommy gets older, his mother gets even more desperate for a treatment that will work. Turning to religion, she ends up at a church that worships Marilyn Monroe as a savior who can heal the deaf, dumb, lame, blind, and more. This has got to be the weirdest church service that I've ever seen! Of course, it doesn't work for Tommy.
Next, Frank takes Tommy to visit The Acid Queen (Tina Turner). She claims to be a gypsy who will set the boy right in just one night. Tina Turner is amazing in this role. She's just so powerful and beautiful with an amazing voice. She's extremely scary though, with an iron maiden full of needles instead of spikes. Her guarantee was to no avail as Tommy still lives in his own mind.
Before long, you can tell that they've pretty much given up on Tommy and start leaving him with various people so that they can get some time out. First he's left with a cousin, Kevin (Paul Nicholas). Kevin is worse than the previous treatments by far! He's the "school bully" by his own proclamation and tortures Tommy the entire time. Then it's Uncle Ernie's (Keith Moon) turn to take care of Tommy. Uncle Ernie definitely isn't right at all, but Keith Moon is hilarious in the role.
After all this though, Tommy discovers pinball. Now don't ask me how it works, but apparently "the deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball." The money he wins for this takes care of any money problems they might have and leaves them living high on the hog, even though Tommy still has no connection to the real world. He doesn't realize how famous he has become even. Once Tommy gets out of his own mind, the movie gets even odder.
There are no special features available on the Blu-ray, but that's common with a movie this old. You can, however, watch it with movieIQ turned on if you'd like. What you do get with the Blu-ray is amazing sound quality, which is important in a movie that is entirely musical. There is not a single word spoken, they're all sung, so you want the best quality sound that you can possibly get and this disc delivers!
If you've never seen Tommy, I highly recommend you watch it today just for the experience. Those of you who have seen it are going to want this hi-def version with amazing sound quality to totally overload your senses.
