Pale Rider Movie Review

Pale Rider (1985)

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Written by:  Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress
Rated: R

Plot
A mysterious preacher protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to encroach on their land.

Verdict
It's a quintessential Western, distinctly Clint Eastwood with an underlying mystery never quite answered. Who is this guy? Everyone is enthralled with this preacher that doesn't seem like a preacher. It checks all the boxes of the genre, but provides welcome tweaks to the genre.
Watch it.

Review
This was one of Eastwood's last westerns before Unforgiven, which had a modernized plot. It wasn't the plot staple of a stranger who rides into town like Pale Rider. This is one of the last in the genre, a perfect example of the type of character Eastwood played so well while marking the transition of his move away from the western genre and staying behind the camera.


Opening with a group out outlaws shooting up a town and even a dog, a little girl prays for a miracle and in the next scene Clint Eastwood rides into town. Eastwood plays a lot of mysterious strangers riding into town to save the  day. While that's the blueprint for a lot of Westerns, Eastwood has played similar characters in Dirty Harry and even Gran Turino.
It's easy to like Eastwood's characters. He typically plays a man of few words with a witty response when needed. He's confidant and determined, always defeating his foes.

The stranger helps defend a man and is graciously welcomed into their home. The man's fiance doesn't want a gunman in her house, but she changes her mind when he puts on his preacher clothes. The movie gives us enough clues to think Eastwood's stranger isn't really a preacher. It's a nice twist on the stranger story. As a preacher, real or not, the stranger represents hope. He's more than willing to help this small mining town, and when he picks up a sledgehammer you'd think the town had never seen a preacher even touch a sledgehammer. The entire town watches him smash rocks with that hammer.

The local rich guy Lahood is trying to drive off the town and claim the mines for himself by dispatching bandits to quicken the process, but now the town has hope. They were on the verge of folding, but now they're willing to fight. Lahood tries to bribe Eastwood, but is quickly rebuked. Somehow they know each other. The stranger's mysterious past isn't revealed. This movie feels like a companion to High Plains Drifter, though this isn't as direct a fantasy. The paranormal aspects of High Plains Drifter made it unique in the genre (read my review).  As you might guess, the stranger rides into the sunset, his mystery unresolved.