Pale Rider DVD > Reviews > A Figure Like Death on The Horizon

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Good
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Real
Disadvantages:	Hmmm

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

To save time and effort, instead of reviewing this film I'll just throw in some applicable words and let you have your own discussion: Pale Rider, Unforgiven, western, Eastwood, great. There you are...now onto the next film. What? You're still here? You want more? MORE?!?!?! (You're not a small street urchin called Oliver are you?)

A small settlement of gold miners are being driven from their land by local land magnate Coy LaHood. With his water blasting mining LaHood intends to ravage the land in the hunt for the most precious of metals and isn't about to let a group of settlers stand in his way. But one day a stranger arrives - A figure dressed in black who has the spirit (and six shooters) to stand up to LaHood and manages to unite the miners against the common foe. Seemingly beaten, LaHood calls in a band of mercenaries to put an end to the mysterious Preacher and his uprising. Will the settlers back down or will they stand up to be counted? Indeed, against hired guns will even the Preacher stand up to be counted...

Ah the western, preserve of yesteryear and therefore not worth wasting my breath on. Only I'd be wrong if I thought that. While the western is very much still seen as being a pre-Sputnik genre, people like Eastwood have championed it non-stop. Many 'modern' westerns have tried to generate interest by filling the screen with brat-packers, 'cool' dialogue, and 'babes'. They're all awful, and if you want a really great western then you have to go back to the masters of the genre, and in this day and age that means Clint Eastwood.

Pale Rider was released at a time when the western was at it's lowest ebb. Unforgiven was still years away and it had been nigh on 15 years since the last echoes of the spaghetti westerns that had re-invented the genre. Blips on the chart such as The Outlaw Jose Wales had been simply that, blips, and it would be safe to say that westerns as a whole were lying face down on the ground waiting for the undertaker to come along and measure them for a wooden box. Until Pale Rider.

Taking one of the most endearing of western themes, the mysterious stranger, Pale Rider manages to take what is effectively a routine story of revenge and wrong-doing and give it a hard realistic edge. The spaghetti western had gone for ultra violence in place of realism and in the intervening years it was seemingly Eastwood alone who had added the drab grey realism that has given the genre a new lease of life. So the story is nothing new, but is that the end of the tale?

The mysterious Preacher, and indeed the whole story, is very much a throwback to most of the earlier films but at it's core that's a great story: The oppressed rising up and beating a seemingly invincible foe. It's The Magnificent Seven all over again. Yes they need the intervention of a mysterious figure and while it is possible to analyse the stranger himself and rationalise him as being death, a ghost, a liar, a fake, or whatever he serves as the catalyst and/or figurehead that the weak rally behind. He serves as their guiding light and this type of story is certainly not confined to the western. But if you set it on a faraway planet with aliens and tin foil suits then you stand a much better chance of getting finance.

But what of the story? So it's simple but that does not make it bad. In fact it's a very good moralistic tale that manages to drag in most of the elements that we expect from a western - revenge, gun fighting, general stores, and corrupt land owners. It isn't cliche though and you can forget blonde haired blue eyed Alan Ladd figures riding atop gleaming white stallions while wearing perfectly tailored shirts and shiny cowboy boots. Instead the characters are more complete and the situation far more realistic. There's no neat little homesteads with flowers on the table and blue check curtains at the window, but rather dirt, grime, and grim reality. This basis in fact is what makes Pale Rider work so well and audiences would find it difficult to accept the story book view of the 'wild west'.

Eastwood again takes both director and lead roles but for now we'll concentrate on his acting skills. His Preacher character is very much the strong silent type that Eastwood has been playing for years. A problem? Not in the slightest as this is what he does extremely well. There's more here though as the story casts doubt on the Preacher. Yes he drifts into town and helps the oppressed just as in many a film but there's more here. There's a hint of the amorous drifting around, an undercurrent of the supernatural, and little extras that throw in questions all over the place. Eastwood handles all of this magnificently but he's also aged well and the silent gunslinger of the 60's has been replaced by a more world weary and battle hardened gunfighter. His craggy looks are ideal but Eastwood makes sure that his performance matches his physical 'cragginess'.

It would be easy to think that there was nothing more to the film than Eastwood, but other cast members are needed (and luckily do appear). Michael Moriarty makes a good salt of the earth leader of the settlers but he's a totally different character to the Preacher and his performance reflects this. While Eastwood is cold and almost soul-less, Moriarty is the family man trying to the best he can. This contrast not only works well but goes a long way to dispel the myth that everyone in the late 19th century America wore spurs and herded cattle. Carrie Snodgrass puts in a good performance as Sarah and her 'interest' in the Preacher adds another story line to muddy the water.

In fact it's difficult to find fault with any of the cast but personally I found Chris Penn and Richard Dysart to be rather ineffectual as bad guys. Penn is too clumsy and thick and Dysart lacks the growling anger of a Gene Hackman figure. Small flies, big tub of ointment.

With his director's hat on Eastwood does just as good a job as when he has his Stetson on and puts together a great film that drips realism. The snowy landscapes look cold, the homesteads look hard and uninviting, and Pale Rider feels like a lesson in reality rather than a story from fantasy. He allows the story to develop well and leaves questions unanswered, lives incomplete, and futures uncertain. Consider it a nod to the never ending lives of the pioneers and enjoy it while you can.

If you consider the western dead then give this a try. Yes it's far less 'glamorous' than the spaghetti efforts of the 60's and a world away from the 'heroic' cowboys of old, but it's a great starting block for the 'real' westerns that pop up now and then. Anyone who enjoyed Unforgiven will find much to enjoy here and while some will never accept it as being 'proper' entertainment, it's entertaining none the less. It's not warm, it's not cuddly, and it sure ain't purdee, but it's a great way to spend a couple of hours and no mistake