In one small town there is a seasoned preacher trying to carry out a lofty mission for the benefit of a group of innocent people. The owners of neighboring lands tried to encircle a gold mining camp in the foothills of the California mountains to intimidate miners. The real aim of the intimidation seems to be that the workers are abandoning their land. The mysterious preacher moved to that camp in California using all his powers to try to persuade the landlord to abandon his attacks on the miners.
Eastwood's mythic Western divided film critics: Some were baffled by the audacity of his playing a religious figure, while others claimed he was just embodying the mysterious knight-stranger, a common character in classic Westerns.
It had been so long since a quality western had hit America's screens that it appears as if Eastwood purposely set out to remind audiences of all the elements that make the genre work.
Pale Rider does nothing to disprove the wisdom that this genre is best left to the revival houses. A double feature of Shane and Eastwood's High Plains Drifter will do just fine, thanks.
I'm just now beginning to realize that, though Mr. Eastwood may have been improving over the years, it's also taken all these years for most of us to recognize his very consistent grace and wit as a filmmaker.
Movie Metropolis
September 01, 2008
...who else would you want coming to your rescue than the Preacher Man With No Name?
Though the metaphysical overtones of the screenplay are sometimes awkwardly handled and Eastwood's direction of actors (other than himself) is occasionally uncertain, this was one of the better American films of 1985.
