Word: paleness
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...detective along with her stock characters, a deadly earnest tone and a climactic burst of violence befitting its story of long-calculated revenge. Although the setting remains British, Help the Poor Struggler is rather an American novel, with brooding and cynical overtones of Raymond Chandler ("It wasn't the pale skin of a man who'd not seen enough of the sun. It was more as if one had put a paintbrush to an emotion -- despair, desolation, whatever -- and tinged it in that sickly whitishgray"). Depth of characterization is not Grimes' strong suit, but she produces vital word pictures...
This movie is perhaps worth the two dollar matinee at the Somerville theater. But don't pay $4.75 to see it. Go to the original Shane instead. If you've already seen the original but are hell-bent on seeing Clint's latest, don't be surprised if Pale Rider disappoints...
...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...
...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, he looks like both, warmed over...
When Eastwood, who also directed the picture (from a Michael Butler-Dennis Shryack script), faces off against Russell's Maleficent Seven, viewers may get an old-fashioned western tingle. But 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...