DVD : Pale Rider [1985]

Rating: - Jaw(s) dropping, maybe?
No matter how hard fighters have fought there is always one more battle around the corner. Trying to put his dubious past behind himself Pale Rider stumbles upon a small but split community. He is taken by their endeavours and honesty, but he is ultimately drawn into a fight he'd rather ride away from. Having been shown hospitality by them he obliges to see off an intruder in the shape of Richard Kiel(Jaws from Moonraker). He manages this in a manner reminiscent of David versus Goliath.
A criticism I would level at our hero is that he accounts for more corpses than the Black Death, and his final confrontation leaving his "mark" in a unique fashion was way too contrived. No matter how good or crafty he may be it doesn't have the full menace of a man well out-numbered. Still, as a man of the cloth he'd have God on his side, so perhaps divine intervention gave him an edge( "A man's got to have an edge"...?? :) ).
If I'm correct then this is the second preacher he has portrayed, the first in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Never quite converts fully to the cloth as old habits are hard to break....?

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Rating: - Solid, well groomed but not an innovator
Clint Eastwood is capable of a great deal yet he doesn't always need to innovate or aim high. This movie, which he directs and produces, is sensibly not that ambitious, but it is, for that reason perhaps, very well realised. You don't have to re-invent the wheel all the time, and Eastwood uses the western formulas well (the mining community being moved out for commercial development is hardly new; nor the drifting taciturn gunslinger), but Eastwood has a very nice ear for bringing out the emotions and character of supporting cast, aided here by good performances most especially from Michael Moriarty, and the actresses who play his putative wife and step-daughter to perfection.

There is some nicely suppressed sexual politics between mother and daughter (have you ever come across a mother-daughter-man-preacher quadrangle?) and the movie as a whole is under-stated, yet well-paced. You can certainly sense eastwood searching gently for a more meaningful western which of course, he finds later with Unforgiven. By some western standards, the shoot-out is relatively unspectacular, yet the movie never loosens its grip, and the camel-coated deputies and sherrif stockwell are progressively dispatched, occasionally with a modicum of humour.

The idea of a Preacher - fake or otherwise - is a neat twist in a gunslinger; Eastwood plays it with a sort of amoral rectitude, reaping ultimate revenge on the bad guys, but refusing to take advantage of the besotted daughter. He's not quite so self-denying when it comes to the wife, and Moriarty's character is left somehow cuckolded and yet King. There are shades here of Alan Ladd and Shane too, in the final scene. One small issue is the mysterious sight and references to his mortality - the ancient gunshot wounds. This is not resolved but neither is it sufficiently drawn out and hangs as a bit of an irrelevant teaser. I suspect this was poor editing or else a rare misjudged plot orphan.

As with most Eastwood movies, you certainly can't accuse this film of waffling, and the direction is tight but not claustrophobic. But its not going to redefine the genre: and hey, why should it? A good one from Eastwood.

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Rating: - Cuts Deep into a fairly standard script
In the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns of the 60s, Clint Eastwood rose to fame playing the man with no name. In 'Pale Rider', Eastwood creates his own variation of this character. Eastwood plays a mysterious gunfighter who is given the name 'preacher' because of the preacher's collar he wears. When the 'preacher' arrives at a gold mining community, he helps them stand up against a callous landowner.

Eastwood cuts deep into the film's characters in what is a rather standard script. Particularly, in the scenes involving the preacher and a gold-mining family. Eastwood also succeeds in giving his film a dark atmosphere which only adds to its intensity.

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Rating: - CLINT AT HIS VERY BEST
This is one of my favourite westerns ever. Clint plays a mysterious gunfighting priest with a shodowy past. His character is excellent, haunted eyes and a chest full of bullet hole scars that should have killed a rhino.

The story is good, the gun fights well filmed and Clint makes John Wayne look like a big jessie.

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Rating: - Great Eastwood Western
"Pale Rider" is one of the best Eastwood westerns ever made, period. "Pale Rider" is perhaps not as good and well known as "Unforgiven" or "A Fist full of Dollars", but it is a really nice addition to those films. Great actors, good story, nice scenery and exciting shootouts, what more could anyone want if they are looking for some decent western entertainment? Give this underrated Eastwood movie a chance, you won't regret it. A classic western tale.