Warner Bros.
Clint Eastwood’s 1980’s were a boom and bust period oscillating between smaller, complex pictures that often challenged the audience’s perception of his persona and throwing in big crowd pleasers when he felt that he needed a big hit.
1984’s City Heat, Eastwood’s only collaboration with long time friend and fellow mega-star Burt Reynolds was supposed to be such a hit, but when it fizzled out at the box office, Eastwood broke out the big guns and returned to the genre that made him a superstar, the Western.
Pale Rider therefore could have easily been a stock Western, a crass commercial submission to legacy and the needs of the market.
Instead, what we get is one of the best revival westerns of all time: beautifully shot and directed, perfectly cast and structured, a genuine classic that will endure as long as American films do.
Pale Rider is set in the latter days of the Old West in Carbon Canyon, a prospector’s camp in Northern California. Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty) is the unofficial leader of the camp, which is under constant assault by the hired thugs of local mining magnate Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart) who is looking to drive the prospecting families off their claims and take land for himself. During a particularly brutal raid by Coy’s son Josh (Chris Penn) Hull’s young stepdaughter Megan (Sydney Penny) prays to God for help.
Enter The Preacher.
Clint Eastwood plays The Preacher: a mysterious wanderer who comes to the aid of the camp and seems to be of almost superhuman determination. The mysterious Preacher galvanizes the camp, and turns away LaHood’s thugs and bribery attempts all without firing a shot. In desperation, LaHood hires Marshal Stockburn (John Russell) and his posse of killers to deal with the camp once and for all and the Preacher must take up arms in a final, lethal, struggle to defend his community once and for all.
Pale Rider is a companion piece to Eastwood’s 1973 classic High Plains Drifter which similarly mixes implied supernatural elements with slick Western action but interestingly enough it inverts all the specifics: instead of the earlier film’s acidic critique of American apathy and hypocrisy, we’re given a more hopeful story about the possibility of creating a space for love and family in a hostile world.
Whereas High Plains Drifter reveled in harsh desert heat and deep reds, Pale Rider is an autumnal film, with a muted color palette. Instead of the Stranger’s Old Testament justice being wrought upon a town, we get a Preacher who is preoccupied with uplifting the downtrodden, only turning to lethal force as a last resort.
Despite acting as a kind of Magnum Force to the earlier film, Eastwood still delivers the goods in Pale Rider.
This is a slow burn Western leading to a final, elaborate, action climax but it is not particularly slow paced. The menace and mystery the Preacher exudes to the villains make any scene between them indelible and Pale Rider gets strong performances from supporting players like Michael Moriarty and Sydney Penny as well as memorable villainous turns from Chris Penn, Billy Drago, and Richard Kiel.
For all the softening of Eastwood’s spectral gunfighter and the more hopeful tone, Pale Rider truly works because of Eastwood’s understanding of his mythic legacy and persona. This is a crowd pleaser: I’ve seen this twice in theaters and the sequence where the Preacher disappears only to show up in another town and finally collect his gun belt from a safety deposit box never fails to elicit a cheer from an audience.
Pale Rider lacks the satirical force of High Plains Drifter or the existential pondering of Unforgiven. It is not one of Eastwood’s westerns intended to make a grand, cinematic statement. It is, instead, a perfect workmanlike example of the genre and a gentle counterpoint to his earlier fire. It is timeless in its craft and execution and a perfect introduction to the genre.
Extras include featurettes and two feature length documentaries.
Recommended.
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