The Outlaw Josey Wales
[4K/Digital Code]
Look, I’m no Clint Eastwood fan, but I wanna be. I really do. His catalog is celebrated, both as an actor and a director. He’s old, he’s grumpy, and he’s still out there doing it. As far as I know, he’s not a “bad guy,” so the impact he has on Hollywood is admirable. Good for you, Clin!
I wanna be a Clint Eastwood fan, and after watching Unforgiven and Dirty Harry I might be. I haven’t seen his spaghetti westerns, but Warner Brothers is riding off some Eastwood popularity by releasing Dirty Harry (yay!), Pale Rider (huh?), and The Outlaw Josey Wales (wha?) in 4K! We’ll have more on the other the other two soon, but seeing as Josey Wales is the weirdest sounding one, I thought I’d start there.
Look, I’m not gonna beat around the bush. This movie did not do it for me. If you’re gonna burn a child alive in the first 5 minutes, you better have one hell of a story lined up to dig yourself out of that hole. Josey Wales did NOT do that. First of all, Josey Wales, as a member of the confederate army, I’m sure wasn’t exactly the “good guy”, and this is our hero? It’s just one bummer after another with this movie. The way it’s shot is a bummer: with its cold dark hues. The way Josey Wales meets and picks up tag-alongs is a bummer, the tag-a-long themselves are a bummer, their interpersonal dynamic is a bummer, and the places they go to are a bummer. Maybe life in the south during the Civil War was a just THE bummer? We do get to see these people live a semblance of happy normal lives at some point, and that was nice to see, but yeesh, too little too late, you know what I mean?
Is this movie for die hard Eastwood fans? I’m not sure. But, you know what I think of it? I think you do.
