Josey Wales, o Fora da Lei

Clint Eastwood has directed, played in or starred in a lot of westerns. We all have our favorites and this my favorite Eastwood western, along with the more set-in-modern-day western, "Bronco Billy." (The latter is really a drama more than a western.)

This is simply an extremely entertaining story with two lead characters - played by Eastwood and Chief Dan George - who were fascinating to watch. Also, as in most westerns, I enjoyed the good photography and was surprised, considering the year of release, that the language was pretty tame.

George has always been a favorite Native American actor for many people. He gets choice roles playing likable guys, and "Lone Watie" character here is no exception. Eastwood, as " Josey Wales," reverts successfully back to his "Man with no name" persona: you know, the strong silent and somewhat mean type. He's a lot like the characters John Wayne played late in his career. He best portrays this with scenes like the one in which he spits tobacco on his dog!

In addition, there are some solid actors in minor roles, people like John Vernon, Sondra Locke and Bill McKinney, Will Sampson, Sheb Wooley and Sam Bottoms, among others. I was surprised Locke, Eastwood's girlfriend or wife at the time, didn't have a bigger role. With her youthful looks and great big eyes, she looked prettier than I've ever seen her, although she never was a glamor girl or got many good parts.

At 136 minutes, this is a bit long but it never drags. This is one of the very few movies I ever watched twice within two weeks and enjoyed it immensely both times....and each time since.

This is Clint Eastwood in one of his best roles ever. There's great one-liners like "You gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?", "Dyin ain't much of a livin boy", etc. Eastwood meets up with the likes of 10-bears (Indian chief), Yankee soldiers, Rapist Trappers, you name it. At one point Eastwood meets an old Indian "I forgot his name" who tells him that he didn't surrender, but they captured his horse and made him surrender. I haven't seen this movie in over 2 or 3 years and so my memory of it has faded some but it's one of the best Westerns ever. As Eastwood would say "Better 'an you'll ever live to see". Rarely is there a happy ending in Eastwood's work. There's always another trail to ride, a bounty to collect, and blood to be shed. 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' shows how hard it is for that blood to be washed away.

Love, hate, revenge, forgiveness, sorrow, life, death, emargination, racism, the uselessness of war, betrayal, redemption, solidarity, friendship. Not many films manage to deal competently with even just one of these topics. This masterpiece deals with all. Within the first 4 or 5 minutes (even before the opening credits) one has already been exposed to more force and emotion than most films can pack up in 90 minutes.

By the end of the 2 hrs 10 minutes of this film one would have lived through tour-de-force highlighted by memorable climaxes and showdowns featuring some of the most striking dialogue in cinematic history... "dying ain't no way to make a living". Eastwood's character doesn't speak much but utters a handful of memorable lines.

The central character played by Eastwood is given fine support by an excellent ensemble cast including Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney and most of all John Vernon. John Vernon plays a character called Fletcher who turns out to be one of the most complex characters I have ever come across. His motivations and true intentions are never quite clear. He comes across as a bit of a Judas figure and yet he still retains his humanity as the script and Eastwood as the director never truly judge Fletcher, leaving the viewer to judge for him or herself. Almost every character is memorable and every performance fits in place.

The action is sudden and explosive and not always expected. The film takes many twists and turns, yet every twist is a natural consequence of the situations and characters in the film. Ultimately one is left with a truly rich cinematic experience which should appeal to more than just fans of the Western genre. Its themes of suffering and the consequences of evil acts is still sadly relevant in today's world - a world in which not all wars are won by the good guys and in which the good are sometimes persecuted by those who win these wars.

When thinking of the best pre-credit sequences ever forget most others... this should be your best bet.

Even when matched up against his Oscar-winning 1992 film UNFORGIVEN, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES must rank as being among Clint Eastwood's finest turns both in front of and behind the camera. Having displayed a solid feel for the director's chair with 1971's PLAY MISTY FOR ME and 1973's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, Eastwood took the reins on JOSEY WALES when he and the original director Philip Kaufman, who still shared a co-write of the script (and had directed 1972's THE GREAT NORTHFIELD, MINNESOTA RAID), ran into some pretty strong disagreements. The end result was one of the best westerns of the 1970s, in critical, commercial, and artistic terms.

Eastwood's character is a farmer living out a quiet life in Missouri near the end of the Civil War who is forced to see his whole family and homestead wiped out by marauding "Redlegs" from Kansas. He joins up with a guerrilla band of Southerners to "set things aright." But when the Union betrays those same guerrillas into surrendering and then promptly slaughters all of them, Eastwood takes violent revenge. He soon finds himself of the run at the reluctant hands of his former commander (John Vernon), and a determined Union man named Terrill (Bill McKinney, who played one of the sadistic mountain men in DELIVERANCE). As he heads towards Texas, he encounters a motley group of outcasts (Chief Dan George; Sondra Locke; Paula Trueman), and becomes less obsessed by violent revenge and more interested in helping, going for his guns only when McKinney's Union troop closes in, and bounty hunters come looking for him.

In contrast to the "Man With No Name" persona he codified with Sergio Leone in the 1960s, or the tough cop he personified in DIRTY HARRY, Eastwood's Josey Wales is a man of great courage and sympathy who becomes tired of all the violence he has had to see and to take part in. The vengeance motif is largely played out by the time the film is into its second half, and it only comes back towards the tail end for a brief moment. Those who have tagged Eastwood as a political reactionary, a John Wayne of our time, have certainly misjudged him, as even one viewing of THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES will testify to. He is not interested in being tough for the sake of being tough; he just wants to survive, and he wants those he protects to be able to live in peace. That's why, although the film is unavoidably violent at times, it has a considerable humanity too, and why it remains one of Eastwood's finest films even to this day.

Strikes all the right notes of humor, adventure, gun fights and most of all, authenticity. Eastwood is impressive in front of and behind the camera. The script stays reasonably close to the book (Gone to Texas).

Chief Dan George is truly a treasure and was perfectly cast. The great Will Samson is imposing and utterly believable as Ten Bears. Bill McKinney (from the "Eastwood acting collective") is great as Terrill. Although, Sandra Locke is typically forgettable in an otherwise well cast film.

This along with Unforgiven will forever be branded classic "Cowboy" movies in my mind. I still recall Orson Welles on the Tonight Show telling Johnny he had just seen "the greatest Western ever made" after viewing The Outlaw Josey Wales. Brilliant film.