Word: clint
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REMEMBER THE GOOD OLD DAYS of Clint Eastwood? The days when Josey Wales would take out half an army with his six shooter? Those violent spaghetti westerns of yesteryear were an original departure from traditional western themes. Instead of the good guy in white, they had the gunslinger as anti-hero. You also had a lot of fun watching Clint quietly blow people away with style. Those were the days...
...like the Old West, those days are gone. Instead, in Pale Rider, Eastwood presents us with a character who is a walking mixed metaphor of death, kindness, and virility. The new fusion of Clint as sensitive actor with Eastwood as macho killer might actually be tolerable however, if the entire movie was not such an obvious rip off of Shane, the classic 50s Western with Alan Ladd...
...difference in plot is for the worst. Clint actually does the deed with his neighbor's concubine, something that Shane never would have done. The portrayal of an ex-gunfighter trying to get away from it all--which was barely believable when Ladd did it--is lost in Eastwood's performance, as he begins the movie by beating his opponents to a pulp...
...Seeing themselves bigger than life onscreen, actors figure their characters' next step is toward deity. So Sly Stallone rewrites history and wins the Viet Nam War in retrospect. Robert Redford turns the gifted loser of Bernard Malamud's novel The Natural into a legend inscribed in fireworks. As for Clint Eastwood, cited in a recent Roper poll as the nation's No. 1 hero, impersonating mere humans is no longer a challenge. So in Pale Rider, Hollywood's first big-time, straight-faced western since Heaven's Gate, Eastwood plays God, or maybe Death. With his gritty stare and stubble...
...maiden's prayer. With Carter Crick laid waste by evil strip miners, young Megan (Sydney Penny) kneels over her martyred pooch and begs God for "a miracle" to save her mother (Carrie Snodgress), her mom's suitor (Michael Moriarty) and what is left of the settlement. Dissolve to Clint on horseback. He saves the good folks, kills the bad folks, dodges a mother-daughter rivalry for his affections and ends up in a showdown ^ with a gunslinger (John Russell) who is even gaunter than Clint. You could hibernate in Russell's cheek hollows...