High Plains Drifter
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Movie Reviews of High Plains Drifter
Movie Review: A superb film
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the superb Clint Eastwood westerns; he is the star and he directs. A mysterious stranger (Eastwood) rides his horse down a mountain toward the town Largo, out of a mist, as splendid music plays in the background. He passes a graveyard, which is significant, and rides into town, as the inhabitants gather at windows to watch him arrive. They sense something amiss, but do not know what. He is startled as he rides through town when he hears a stage coach driver snap his whip. He walks into a saloon, orders a beer, and is taunted by three thugs. He ignores them, strides across the muddy street to a barber shop for a shave and bath for ninety cents. The thugs follow him and try to shoot him, but he kills all three. The town people are amazed at his skill.
As he falls asleep that night in a hotel, he sees/remembers a man being beaten to death with whips by three men, as he calls out to the town folks for help. They watch, but give no aid. The town leaders arrest the three while they are sleeping drunk, but not for the murder. Why, we wonder, did everyone do what they did? What prompted the beating? Were the citizens cowards or were they complicit in the murder? Who was killed?
The three murderers are released from prison after serving their six month sentence and are returning to Largo for money and revenge. The town people are afraid of these gunfighters. They beg Eastwood to help them. They offer him anything he wants. He looks at the people with contempt. He agrees and takes whatever he wants. Among many other things, he seizes the hotel for himself, clutches expensive cloths,grabs many items and gives them as gifts, enters the saloon and orders free drinks for everybody, removes the mayor and sheriff from their offices and gives their jobs to a man the town despises. He helps the town prepare for the arrival of the three thugs by taking material from its citizens. He has the town painted red and changes its name on the sign that reads Largo to Hell. It is clear that he wants to destroy the town and hurt and perhaps kill its people. We wonder why, and like the town people and the three thugs, we ask: who is this man.
Movie Review: High Plains Drifter - Another great Eastwood western!
Summary: 5 Stars
In this classic western, Clint Eastwood performs admirably as producer, director and of course starring in the lead role. High Plains Drifter is an excellent tale that highlights Eastwood's talents in this genre, whether it's his "Stranger" type aura or the clipped but poignant lines. This great western has a superb script and exceptional performances by Eastwood and the other actors. Its surreal style, unexpected plot twists and great camera angles serve well to enhance this movies overall appearance. I do not normally comment on the soundtrack for films however, in this case I feel compelled to because I felt the soundtrack for this one is a perfect accoutrement to the overall feel of the movie!The premise:
A lone stranger rides into town and is immediately set upon by some of the locals. Unfortunately for these rough locals, they've picked the star of the movie in Clint Eastwood to aggravate and they receive his quick six shooter justice for their efforts. The locals, being a cowardly bunch, eagerly set out to appease him in every way in order to secure his loyalty and protection from a group of criminals who are soon to be released from the territorial prison.
The "Stranger" agrees to be their benefactor and immediately sets out to do so in some strange ways. Through humiliation, misogyny and the threat of immediate "justice," he begins to prepare the town for return of the criminals. As a surreal side note, the Stranger and some of the locals are having waking nightmares about the brutal killing of the former marshal by the criminals who are expected to return. What follows is a western that is one of the best and a benchmark for all westerns to follow.
I highly recommend this great Eastwood western to any and all die hard or casual fans of the genre or the actor. It is a classic western that deserves a spot on the DVD rack.
Special features:
Not unlike many of the other movies of the time, this one isn't jam packed with special features because there just aren't many to throw in. It does have a great trailer and some production notes that are quite interesting to read through on the screen. {ssintrepid}
Movie Review: Clint - The Avenging Angel with No Name
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of Clint Eastwood's best efforts. The subject of the film was later reprized in "Pale Rider", which is good in its own right, but "pales" beside the mythic resonance of "Drifter".
Clearly, Eastwood is using everything he learned at the feet of the master Sergio Leone, but goes the master one better. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" had a strong anti-war message on a grand scale. "Drifter" is a more interior kind of study of group corruption, and the place of the a-moral avanger within the panoply of human foibles.
I'm surprised that no reviewer has taken up the Christological overtones of the film. The Sheriff of Lago is whipped to death in the street in front of all of the townspeople - just like Jesus on the stations of the cross. "The Stranger", as the returning (resurrected?) ghost of the Sheriff (who is only reckognized as such by the town dwarf), is also handy with a whip, as was Jesus when he "cleansed" the Temple of the corruption of the money-lenders (which is the exact hidden sin of the town).
"Lago" is obviously an anagram for "Gaol": the citizens are locked in a purgatory waiting room, and The Stranger has come to dispense judgment.
The role of the dwarf, whom The Stranger appoints first as Mayor and then as Sheriff of the town, simply to grind the faces of the towspeople in their own corruption, is a brilliant bit of Sergio Leone parody put on steroids!
The entire movie is paced excellently and has a very satisfying balance. Geoffry Lewis as the head of the bad guys later became a staple player in Eastwood's Malpaso productions, including an excellent turn in "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot".
All in all, this is a quintessential Eastwood film, and is probably the capstone of the Sergio Leone style Western. One can imagine the master grinning and nodding in approval during his first viewing of the pupils fledgling production!
Movie Review: Cruel and Dirty
Summary: 5 Stars
Clint Eastwood reprises his cigar-smoking, whisky-swilling, sharp-shootin' Western hero, but with a significantly darker aspect in this film. Eastwood's no Kurosawa or Leone, and his direction is less interested in building dramatic tension, sweeping over the brown Western desertscapes, or focusing in on the eyes of hardened gunfighters. Rather, this is a psychological Western, zooming in on the cowardly inhabitants of Lago and Eastwood's violent and total domination of them.Frequent flashbacks of a brutal - and unjust - whipping that took place before Eastwood's arrival eventually explain the protagonist's behavior, which includes several cold-blooded murders and two [forced couplings] that must rank among the most anti-feminist moments in modern cinema. First a cheap hussy, then a respected townswoman fall under the spell of Eastwood's [member]. A midget gets appointed sheriff and mayor, and turns the tables on his tormentors. No one gets shot in the back, but that's about the only depth of human depravity not plumbed here. By the time the final scene arrives, you share the directorial disgust with the town he's created, and the murderous denouement is welcome.
The music is nowhere near as good as Ennio Morricone's, and the DVD transfer adds nothing to the mono soundtrack. Picture quality is OK - no better. The chapter index is decent, but skip the DVD extras - a set of cast bios and an Eastwood filmography.
Great fun, but don't play it for the kiddies - stick to 'A Fistful of Dollars' for that.
Movie Review: That's right: Westerns can be Metaphysical
Summary: 5 Stars
The motor that drives HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is a metaphysical one. A "Stranger" mysteriously appears in the dysfunctional desert town of Lago, kills three thugs who were hired by town fathers to protect the community from three vengeance-seeking outlaws soon to be released from prison, and subsequently intimidates, terrorizes, and humiliates everyone when the Stranger himself signs on to protect the town.
All the while, we are privy to bits and pieces of an earlier death in Lago: the death of a U.S. Marshal--brutally bullwhipped to death in the street--at the hands of the three imprisoned outlaws. We learn the killers were set up by their employers--the Lago city fathers; and we learn why law-abiding citizens stood silently and looked the other way when their marshal was murdered. With the outlaws released and on their way back to Lago to extract numerous pounds of flesh, the Stranger is revealed for who he really is: a metaphysical Avenger who not only claims vengeance for the murder. . .but for the actions of those who were so callously duplicitous.
While Clint Eastwood has more than his fair share of locker room humor in his portrayal of the Stranger, he succeeds in coming across as a terrifying and inhumane force. When the Avenger finally confronts his killers, the effect is bloodchilling. As mentioned before, the motor that drives HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is a metaphysical one, and it's a motor that works perfectly for this Western.
--D. Mikels, Author, THE RECKONING