My Cultural Diet

Clint Eastwood gets a wee bit Biblical in this ’80s western about a small community of prospectors who are locked in a struggle with a powerful land baron trying to acquire their claims by any means necessary. All hope seems lost for them until a mysterious preacher rides into town one day and quickly starts putting things a-right. Of course, the operative word here is “mysterious” given the preacher’s uncanny ability to fight back against the baron’s goons. Some parts of Pale Rider haven’t aged very well in the last four decades. For example, Eastwood might’ve intended the scene where a teenage girl offers herself to the preacher she’s just met as a chance for the parson to prove his virtue. Or maybe a way to contrast the girl’s innocence and naïveté with the preacher’s obviously violent past. These days, however, it just comes off as little creepy. That said, Pale Rider looks amazing thanks to Bruce Surtees’ cinematography and the beautifully barren Idaho countryside, while Eastwood’s economical direction ensures that there’s no dross to be found in the film’s 116 minutes.

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