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The Outlaw Josey Wales
1976
As the film opens, Josey Wales is a simple farmer in Missouri. When a vicious band of Union Red Legs, led by Terrill (Bill McKinney), burns his home to the ground, killing his wife and son, Wales joins a gang of Confederate raiders, determined to get revenge. After the Confederacy loses the war, Wales sets out on his own, an .. Read more
| Starring | Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney, John Vernon |
|---|---|
| Director | Clint Eastwood |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
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The Outlaw Josey Wales
As the film opens, Josey Wales is a simple farmer in Missouri. When a vicious band of Union Red Legs, led by Terrill (Bill McKinney), burns his home to the ground, killing his wife and son, Wales joins a gang of Confederate raiders, determined to get revenge. After the Confederacy loses the war, Wales sets out on his own, an outlaw who kills to survive. He eventually meets an old Indian (Chief Dan George, in a wonderfully sympathetic performance) and some other outcasts, and together they seek out a more peaceful existence. But Terrill continues to hunt Wales, and the simple farmer is forced to fight again. Critics did not take Clint Eastwood's THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES seriously in 1976. Today, many consider it one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Here the West is an ugly and brutal place, as it is in Sergio Leone's films, but this is a different kind of Eastwood hero. He has a name, a sense of humor, and a heart. Made in the shadow of Vietnam and Watergate, the film conveys a bitter distrust of government but also a longing to live in peace. Next to UNFORGIVEN, this is the most sweeping and emotionally complex of Eastwood's Westerns.
| Starring | Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney, John Vernon, Sam Bottoms, Woodrow Parfrey, Chief Dan George, Paula Trueman |
|---|---|
| Director | Clint Eastwood |
| Studio | WARNER HOME VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 10 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Collections | 100 Wild Westerns |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
| Language | English |
| Hearing-impaired | English, Italian |
| Subtitles | Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish |
| Released | DVD: 23 Aug 1999 Production year: 1976 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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Josey's back! But this time he ain't Clint Eastwood — so who cares? Josey is now played by Michael Parks who, in 1966, was plucked from B-movie obscurity to play Adam in John Huston's The Bible … in the Beginning. Tastefully lit or hiding behind the fig leaf of legend in that film, Parks did not go on to glory but sank back into B-movies. This sequel to the Eastwood classic is mainly just a series of shoot-outs. Parks also directs and he shot it in Mexico with an eye to the Latino market — much of the dialogue is in Spanish and the styling is reminiscent of those paella westerns of the seventies.
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A remarkable film which sets out as a revenge Western: Eastwood sees his family massacred and joins the Confederate... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful member's review
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6 out of 8 people found this review helpful
Not much of an outlaw, but a cracking Western.
Clint Eastwood finally proved that he was more than the protégé of Sergio Leone when it came to Westerns; he was able to make them on his own terms.
This is a brilliantly entertaining film, building on the undelivered potential of "Hang 'Em High" and "High Plains Drifter". Eastwood's Josey Wales is a man with nothing left to live for; he has buried his family, and is being hunted down by the men he once fought alongside.
Clintwood's camerawork is solid and effective, trying out shaky handheld shots as a contrast to the usual array of panoramas. We even get a glimpse of his attitude to violence (inherent in his 1991 classic "Unforgiven") when the outlaw decides to hang up his gun: "I guess we all died a little in the war."
"The Outlaw Josey Wales" is not particularly subversive, nor is it artistically ambitious. It's just a hugely enjoyable, brilliantly made 70s Western. -
Most recent members' review
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
The Drift of Josie Wales
Bringing some reminescencies of the Wild Bunch from Peckinpah, neither its story nor the way it was shot make it a similar film in scope.
The film accompanies Eastwood/Josie Wales on his drift accross the post-civil war West, always between escape from his chasers and revenge from the death of his family.
The drift is a pretext, as the western itself, for an alegory about redemption and damnation.
Not reaching the stylised heights of Pale Rider or the perfection of unforgiven it is, by itself, a film from a director worth seing. -
News and features
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New Clint Eastwood film wins top prize
- 12 Dec 2006
Letters From Iwo Jima, the story of Japanese-American conflict during World War II, has been named as best picture of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The film is directed by Clint Eastwood and is a companion piece to the movie veteran's latest project, Flags of Our Fathers, reports Studio Briefing. Although Eastwood missed out on the prize for best director, the award for best picture is one of many that have been given to the former mayor throughout his extensive career.... Read more
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The Outlaw Josey Wales
As the film opens, Josey Wales is a simple farmer in Missouri. When a vicious band of Union Red Legs, led by Terrill (Bill McKinney), burns his home to the ground, killing his wife and son, Wales joins a gang of Confederate raiders, determined to get revenge. After the Confederacy loses the war, ...
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