The Outlaw Josey Wales
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Movie Reviews of The Outlaw Josey Wales
Movie Review: "Dying ain't much of a living..."
Summary: 5 Stars
In his second western as a director and star, Clint Eastwood made a classic with his 1976 western The Outlaw Josey Wales. Early in the Civil War, Missouri farmer Josey Wales sees his family murdered and farm burned down. Looking for revenge, he joins a guerilla outfit of Confederate cavalry, wreaking havoc on Union forces. But late in the war, the rest of the outfit is massacred when trying to surrender, with Josey and one other man escaping the bloodbath. The duo head west into the Indian Nations and then Texas with a bloodthirsty major on his trail. Making the chase worse, a $5,000 bounty has been placed on Josey's head causing anyone who can handle a gun to be on the lookout for him. By 1976, Eastwood was a western icon, and he puts it all together here as director and star. It's a great story, plenty of action, some humor and great one-liners, and a great supporting cast. Eastwood's best American western right there with Unforgiven, give Josey Wales a shot if you've missed it!
Playing one of his more complicated characters, Eastwood is Josey Wales, the outlaw on the run. Wales is both a killer and a protector as people begin to join him on the trail. Eastwood is great in the part as a more humane but still deadly gunfighter. Chief Dan George is perfectly cast as Lone Watie, an old Cherokee man who travels with Wales. A friendship develops between the men who share more in common than you might think. Sondra Locke plays Laura Lee, a young woman Josey rescues from a gang of Comancheros and starts to have feelings for him. John Vernon and Bill McKinney are the two very different villains, Fletcher, a man who saw his men massacred and is forced to hunt down Wales, and Terrill, a bloodthirsty major looking to finish off the outlaw. Paula Treuman, Sam Bottoms, and Geraldine Kearns also have good parts as some of Josey's traveling companions. And check out these small supporting parts that include Woodrow Parfrey, Joyce Jameson, Royal Dano, Will Sampson, Matt Clark, John Russell, Charles Tyner, John Davis Chandler, John Quade, and Sheb Wooley.
The DVD is a steal with a widescreen presentation that looks great and a handful of special features. The best is a 30-minute making of documentary, "Hell Hath No Fury," but there's also an 8-minute featurette made during filming, a trailer, and three or four menus with cast and crew and background on the movie. One of Eastwood's best, don't miss The Outlaw Josey Wales!
Movie Review: Eastwood's Greatest Western
Summary: 5 Stars
The Outlaw Josey Wales is Clint Eastwood's greatest Western and perhaps his greatest movie. The movie is about a farmer (Eastwood as Josey Wales) who's family is brutally murdered by Union soldiers during the Civil War.
Wales declares revenge and joins a renegade group of militia men fighting for the South.
He becomes a skilled six shooter with a bounty on his head and uses the survival skills he's learned to get himself out of a number of precarious situations.
Along the way he attracts a group of outcasts as they head West and becomes the glue that bands them all together.
There are a number of mixed metaphors in the film and although Wales is a tough and sometimes nasty individual, one can't help cheering for him even as he outsmarts and kills those who are out to kill or capture him.
You frequently feel a sense of relief and compassion as Wales shoots his way out of trouble, most times with the assistance of the outcasts he travels with.
In the next moment though you're reminded of the brutality of the situation and the disregard he has for those who try to stop him as he spits a wad of beef jerky on their foreheads.
He's never fully at peace throughout his journey even after he settles down with his traveling group on land that the Comanche indians allow them to to live on. Just as you think Eastwood's Wales is ready to settle down for good, he has flashbacks of the brutal murder of his family and realizes he must continue fighting. He finally meets up with the "Red Legs" Union soldier (named for the reddish brown leather leggings they wore) toward the end of the movie and psychologically tortures him by firing his empty pistols at him until they meet face to face.
The only negative is the length of the movie, especially if you watch it on TV with the commercials. Other than Sondra Locke, the other actors are type cast wonderfully.
Movie Review: Solid and entertaining throughout - one of the best of the genre'.
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Outlaw Josie Wales" is a terrific western directed by Clint Eastwood. Eastwood, as Wales, is at his laconic best as a farmer-turned-vigilante who spends the majority of the movie seeking vengeance against "Redleggers" who kill his wife, son, and later his friends. As with all of Eastwood's movies, he lets his co-stars share the screen with him which makes all of his movies so intriguing, memorable, and character-driven. Sondra Locke shines in her first major role - that of a young daughter moving to a better life with her mother. Chief Dan George practically steals the show as Josie Wales' Indian companion and has some of the best and most humorous lines in the film. Bill McKinney, John Quade, John Mitchum, and a number of familiar faces from other Eastwood films are present in "TOJW". John Vernon (Of "Animal House" fame and all those great voice-overs) plays a former Wales com padre turned traitor. Also look for veteran character actor, Richard Farnsworth ("The Natural", et. al.) as a Comanchero in an uncredited role.
The body count is as high as anything Sam Peckinpaugh directed and the movie contains a graphic rape scene, so this film is not for the family or the faint-hearted.
All in all, this film ranks with any of Eastwood's best, including "Unforgiven", "Pale Rider", and the "Dirty Harry" series. If you're a fan of Eastwood's or of great westerns, don't miss out on "The Outlaw Josie Wales"!
Movie Review: An intelligent and surprisingly poignant film
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this in the theatre when it first came out and have always tuned in on it whenever I discovered it channel-surfing. It's a great, gritty western that puts you out there in the wilderness, but without using all the sprawling, gratuitous scenery shots you find in so many other films. The story avoids ending up as just a typical revenge tale for many reasons; the variety of characters met along the way, the period of the story - the end of a long Civil War, which left its devastation in the human soul as well as the towns and lands, the ongoing Native American tragedy and the Western Expansion. One can almost get side-tracked from the main plot line except that it all comes together at the end, as the friendships that have been established and the hard experiences that have bonded them culminate in a tense bar room scene that is a brilliant display of unspoken communication between both life-long friends and bitter enemies at the same time. Clint Eastwood pays his audience a great service by letting them in on the secret and you're holding your breath right there with him. Character development, something so ignored in films all too much in favor of explosions and special effects, really makes this piece shine.Movie Review: A crucial turning point at the amazing career of Mr. Clint Eastwood!
Summary: 5 Stars
The outlaw Jossey Wales remarks like no other film a before and an after into the impressive artistic trajectory of this legendary director.
After his family has been massacred in that brutal initial by the Red legs sequence, a sinister band of cutthroats allied with the Union army. So Wales joins the Confederacy to avenge their deaths. But after the war all the bunch surrenders to the victorious Union except him.
The film is a clear allusion to these Post Vietnam years in which nothing was so clear, where the flags covered the red battlefield accompanied with tunes of glory, amazing speeches and beautiful badges.
Wales suffers the transformation (like the iron reaching his melting point) from a humble farmer to a non believer outlaw. He tries to isolate himself just to find for his surprise there are another reasons to live and fight. Fight and redemption; bliss and ethical justice are his own inner voices.
The film that definitively turned on a landmark in his career. A masterpiece all the way through.