SummaryA gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago and is hired to bring the townsfolk together in an attempt to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.
SummaryA gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago and is hired to bring the townsfolk together in an attempt to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.
A gothic horror story and revenge thriller, it’s one of the darkest Westerns going. As much a ghost story as anything else, it stars Eastwood as a gunslinging cowboy paid handsomely to protect an idyllic Californian mining town from bandits.
What’s most notable is how Eastwood holds fast to the rebel spirit of the spaghetti Westerns and revisionist New Hollywood Westerns of the previous decade, but packages it in a film that’s slicker and more mainstream-friendly.
I've seen great Westerns such as El Dorado with John Wayne but this takes on a whole new meaning... Clint Eastwood stars as the man with no name in 1972's High Plains Drifter...... On the back of my DVD it says 72 even though it's supposed to be in 1973 which is confusing.... Anyway Clint Eastwood stars in and directs HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER which is a mystery western and quite dark, bloody and cool. Geoffrey Lewis plays one of the badguys and the idea to paint a town red is strange but it worked well, the whipping scenes are great and the shootings and violence... Clint Eastwood's acting is faultless and perfect and the story never gets boring. Check this excellent film out.
Full of delirious color symbolism and macho cruelties, but not without its humor as well. The story is pure dime-store allegory, but the director/star knows his western cliches and uses them like a master.
There's a boldness, confident stylisation, and genuine weirdness to the movie that totally escaped other post-spaghetti American Westerns, with a real sense of exorcism running both through and beyond it.
High Plains Drifter is a nervously-humorous, self-conscious near satire on the prototype Clint Eastwood formula of the avenging mysterious stranger. Script has some raw violence for the kinks and some dumb humor for audience relief. Eastwood’s second directorial effort is mechanically stylish.
As a director, Eastwood is not as good as he seems to think he is. As an actor, he is probably better than he allows himself to be. Meanwhile, the best you can say for High Plains Drifter is that the title is a low pun. Rarely are humble westerns permitted to drift around on such a highfalutin plane. That, however, is small comfort as this cold, gory and overthought movie unfolds.
Says the paradox: to save the just, you must make a pact with the Devil. Here Eastwood takes advantage of what he has learned in the spaghetti western with a plot that is fully attached to the genre. In some details they will seem inappropriate at the moment but it is not wasted.
Clint Eastwood became a star starring in Westerns, so it wasn't new to see him in this role. But being his second directorial movie, and his first Western, he worked quite safe, just doing what he learnt working as an actor in previous Westerns, especially "A **** of Dollars" (1964). .
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The opening sequence is a homage to (and not a bland ripoff of) the opening of A **** of Dollars. In fact, the entire movie uses the template of A **** of Dollars, but in a really loose manner. It's not really one of the greatest Westerns ever, it's very good though. The story unfolds quite interestingly, and Eastwood has always been great when is an eye squinting badass. His badass-ery and the dynamics between him and the characters elevated the material quite a bit. The movie doesn't feel quite ambitious, in fact, it feels kinda amateur compared to later Westerns, like "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976) and "Unforgiven" (1992), Eastwood directed. Everything felt pretty okay, until the final twist elevated the movie a bit more. It wasn't a Se7en or Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense kind of twist, but was good enough to make the things we watched look better in the end. .
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The thing that was kind of stuck in my head was that the musical score and Eastwood's character - a mysterious messiah with unknown origins - in this movie was kinda "in you face" Dollars Trilogy reminiscence. Every Western before and after Sergio Leone's four absolutely great Westerns are bound to compared to the said four films. And, in my opinion, none of them are anywhere near those films. So, the music not being original isn't an issue, it could've been a little less obvious though. .
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I give it a 7.8/10 (A-).
I don't have much to say about 'High Plains Drifter'. It didn't thrill me or anything, but it did keep my attention from start-to-finish so it's evidently a good film.
Clint Eastwood is the only cast member worth talking about, he gives a commanding performance in the lead role. Geoffrey Lewis, a frequent castmate of Eastwood's, is the best of the rest, if I had to pick. The film does feature dark themes, which helps the film's pacing out a lot.
It's nothing special in my eyes, though there is entertainment there no doubt. It's a borderline 8* rating for me, but not quite.