Review #1476: Pale Rider.Cast:
Clint Eastwood (The Preacher), Michael Moriarty (Hull Barret), Carrie Snodgress (Sarah Wheeler), Richard Dysart (Coy LaHood), Chris Penn (Josh LaHood), Sydney Penny (Megan Wheeler), John Russell (Marshal Stockburn), Richard Kiel (Club), Doug McGrath (Spider Conway), Chuck Lafont (Eddie Conway), and Jeffrey Weissman (Teddy Conway) Produced and Directed by Clint Eastwood (#1252 - Space Cowboys and #1310 - Million Dollar Baby)
Review:
"You have to trust your instincts. There's a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it. Behind the camera you can feel the moment even more clearly. And once you've got it, once you feel it, you can't second-guess yourself. You can find a million reasons why something didn't work. But if it feels right, and it looks right, it works. Without sounding like a pseudointellectual dipshit, it's my responsibility to be true to myself. If it works for me, it's right."
Clint Eastwood has cultivated a unique and prolific career for himself over half of a century. Ther have been quite a bit of actors who have become stars in both television and film, but there have not been as many actors who have also sprung into star directors. Eastwood has had a breakthrough project in each decade since the 1950s, whether that involves television (Rawhide, 1959-65), starring roles (The Dollars Trilogy, Dirty Harry), or directing (debuting with Play Misty for Me (1971), the first of over thirty films), with influence coming from directors he had worked with such as Sergio Leone and Don Siegel with a quick pace. The Western certainly had declined in stature for the 1980s, but Pale Rider was certainly a high point for its decade (being one of the most profitable Westerns released for that era). This was the third Western directed by Eastwood and his first since The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), and it certainly isn't the first of him playing a nameless and mystical drifter (such as with High Plains Drifter over a decade earlier). In general, the film seems to cover ground that was done with Shane (1953), which also had a stranger that came into a town wracked with intimidation over settlers by a baron and his minions that soon escalates into hiring a gunfighter to combat the stranger (in this case, a group of marshals), and the stranger leaves town after it has been settled to stay with its settlers. Of course there are quite a few differences between the two (namely in gold miners as opposed to homesteaders), with the most key being in the quiet details of this film, which has a mystical quality to its title hero, practically seeming like a ghost when engaging in action (which Eastwood subsequently confirmed). In that sense, it makes for an interesting experience of 116 minutes with careful precision. No matter how familiar one is with Eastwood as an actor or director, it isn't too much of a stretch to enjoy what we see without feeling like one is watching a greatest hits Western or something without a competent athmosphere and support to go with it. Eastwood may always grit his way through a role, but it doesn't mean he can't be curious to view regardless, a sardonic presence of careful words. The others prove fairly adept with making this small town setting come forward with careful interest. Moriarty proves an affiable leader of the folks with calmness. Snodgrass and Penny do fine when paired with others, while Dysart and Penn make fair adversaries to view involving greed. Russell (known for his work in the TV show Lawman) makes for a useful presence of old eyes that carry menace. The film proves diverting in its own look upon the mysterious stranger lurking on the frontier with its own kind of mythic nature that make a quietly effective time - whether in thinking about a man we see with bullet holes in the back at first glance or in how he operates with these folks without really needing to show much of himself and cut the ambiguity. There is always a place for a Western that wants to cover a frontier worth looing upon, and this is a fair film in its genre that sets itself up well with atmosphere and a cast worth viewing at least once for its era.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
