It’s slow and the thin plot doesn’t warrant the extended 139-minute running time. Costner proves the general rule that actors cannot direct (the only exceptions being Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen). He has little sense of moving things along or building character. Instead, it’s like a fifth-rate homage to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The one saving grace is Annette Bening as the doctor’s sister.
Clint Eastwood stars as a former bounty hunter who helps a landowner (Robert Duvall) track down the Mexican revolutionary leader Luis Chama (John Saxon).
The landscape cinematography by Bruce Surtees is extraordinary. You could turn almost any frame into a poster. The soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin is perfectly judged, mixing western motifs with funkier elements.
Clint Eastwood is great, as ever. He’s essentially playing the same part he always plays, and you wouldn’t want it any other way.
In the weeks following the US Civil War, Colonel Morsman Carver (Liam Neeson) and a team of men attempt to hunt down a man he wants to kill (Pierce Brosnan).
Both leads are excellent. It’s probably the most actual acting Brosnan has ever done.
There’s a relentless quality as they survive a sequence of grim fates, but unlike its spiritual cousin Revenant it doesn’t become ridiculous or unbelievable.
Emilio Estevez is convincingly unpredictable as William H. Bonney a.k.a. Billy the Kid, although he just made me yearn to re-watch Sam Peckinpah's superior Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Arizona, 1884. Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a rancher who – desperate for money – takes on a job escorting a dangerous criminal named Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to the train that will transport him to Yuma Territorial Prison. There, he will be hung. But Wade is a psychopath with an uncanny intelligence and has other ideas.
Crowe is absolutely perfect for the role because the plot hinges on the power of his charisma and magnetism. He bewitches those around him and somehow gets inside their minds, like a cowboy version of Hannibal Lector.
Adapted from a short story by Elmore Leonard and directed by James Mangold, it’s excellently paced and visually impressive. There are strong performances by Ben Foster (as a truly nasty member of Wade’s gang), Logan Lerman (as Evans' teenage son) and Gretchen Mol (as Evans’ wife). Peter Fonda also appears.
Clint Eastwood is a stranger who rides into a remote mining town whose inhabitants conceal a shameful secret. At the same time, the town folk learn that three dangerous local criminals are heading back that way...
Written by Ernest Tidyman (who also wrote Shaft and The French Connection), it’s an odd film indeed – a sort of surreal, ambiguous morality tale with skewed morals. It even appears to be OK with the idea of rape. Maybe it was brave of Clint Eastwood to portray himself as someone so difficult to like, but this choice does have the effect that there’s absolutely no one in the film who you can relate to.
Scary music by Dee Barton adds atmosphere.
The title is bafflingly unrelated to the story.
A cattle herder wrongly accused of murder (Clint Eastwood) is hung by a gang of nine men. Somehow he survives. After his innocence has been established, he begins working as a marshall and sets about tracking down the villains who wronged him.
It’s remarkable how young Eastwood looks. Hang 'Em High was made after the Sergio Leone trilogy, but somehow he seems less haggard and more baby-faced than he did in those films.
The “political” thread about Oklahoma’s bid for statehood is intriguing, as this seems to be used to justify the town’s bloodthirsty love of capital punishment.
There are elements of horror and melodrama. When the romance with Inger Stevens kicks in, it seems to become a different kind of film altogether. The results are wildly uneven but still fascinating.
His charisma is undeniable, so when a mother (Carrie Snodgress) and her daughter (Sydney Penny) both fall in love with him you can see why. The complex relationships between the preacher and the various family members are expertly explored.
The tension builds in a subtle way and the ending is hugely satisfying.
Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, who was once a dangerous outlaw but who has now cleaned up and settled down to lead a quieter life. His wife has died but he's looking after his young children and working on his small farm. When he decides to take on one last job he finds himself back in trouble, and before long he’s drinking and killing again.
In some ways this is a film designed to appeal to old people, with ageing actors and ageing tropes. Eastwood plays alongside Morgan Freeman (his partner), Gene Hackman (a slightly crazy sheriff) and Richard Harris ("English Bob"). It cleverly examines the myth of the cowboy while also showing the grim reality of the truth behind it, i.e., bullets actually hurt and there’s no glory in taking a man’s life. There’s a certain irony in Clint Eastwood presenting that message after making so many cowboy films, but you hope he was aware of that.
Josey Wales sees his family killed and sets out to get revenge. Along the way he meets some colourful characters, who join him despite his “wanted man” status. As bounty hunters track and trail him, you wonder if he can ever truly be free.
It’s superbly cast all round. Every character is perfectly drawn – especially Chief Dan George as Lone Watie. There’s a quietly comic aspect and a tenderness to his manner that makes him hugely appealing.
I like the way Wales uses his spitting as a form of punctuation during his various encounters and conversations. That tic forms a sort of running joke that gets funnier as the film progresses.
The landscapes look beautiful and even the music is strong, although you do wish they had booked Ennio Morricone to compose the soundtrack.
While it starts out as a simplistic tale of revenge, the film goes on to become something so much broader and richer. I'm looking forward to watching it again.
It’s more ambitious than A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More (with which it’s often grouped as a loose trilogy), with an ongoing, parallel narrative about the US Civil War. There are spectacular battle scenes involving a huge number of extras. It’s unclear whether you are supposed to take it as an anti-war film, or whether it’s again being morally ambiguous on purpose.
On the plus side, Lee Van Cleef (the “bad”) is charismatic as “Angel Eyes”. But the dubbed voices used for all of the actors – even the English-speaking ones – remain a barrier that prevents it from ever seeming even remotely real.
