Movie of the Week: Pale Rider

   

 

    Movie of the Week (5/5/13-5/11/13): As we all know Clint Eastwood has made many westerns for our entertainment and we do miss him making them. But, Pale Rider just might be one of his most over looked and underrated ones. The film follows a man named "Preacher," played by Eastwood, who rides into a mining town in California. The townspeople are about to be forced off of their land by a mining company who wants the land for its resources. "Preacher" then begins to defend them, but he also has a little secret of his own.

    As we watch the movie we are given several clues to who this "Preacher" man might be because the townspeople do not know either. He begins looking for somebody who he wants and then we see several scars made by bullets on his back in an area that would more than likely have killed him. When High Plains Drifter came out Eastwood played with our minds about the supernatural and it looks like he did it again in Pale Rider.
    In the climax, which is of course a brilliant shootout, we are introduced to a character that we again really don't know, he is an older man. He brings his posse, sent by the mining company to take care of this "Preacher" man, and it turns out that this man knows "Preacher." Near the end (this sentence contains spoilers if you haven't seen it yet) the man recognizes "Preacher" during a very well shot scene, but we do not know from what or when and he himself looks very surprised. So, that leaves us the question, is "Preacher" a ghost?
    Well, I'll leave it up to you to make your own conclusion because that is what Eastwood wants from the audience. Even though we don't know every detail about the past of the "Preacher" does not mean this is a bad movie because it definitely is not. Being a western naturally it is beautifully shot in the mountains with snow covered valleys. Eastwood's direction is also very good because it gives us that old style feel, very slow but still draws you in, he would use the same style again a few years later with Unforgiven.
    When is comes to the cast there is not many here that are known, the only one would probably be Chris Penn, but regardless they all do a great job. The plot might seem simple, possibly a revenge story, but it has a few other elements like love and greed to go with it that help the flow of the film. This movie builds up to a great shootout, like many western do, at the end, but unlike other westerns we don't exactly know why "Preacher" wants to kill this one man, but we really don't need to. What is great about this kind of movie is that it is up to the viewer to decide why this happened and who this man really is. This is a very good underrated western from Clint Eastwood and one of my favorites of his, you might have questions at the end still, but it's okay, just enjoy it for what it is.                                                                                                           3.5/4 Stars.