Pale Rider Reviews

The film opens near the fictional town of Lahood, California, in the 1880s (based on remarks in the film about outlawing hydraulic mining), where a group of struggling miners and their families are panning for gold. However, thugs sent by rival big-time miner Coy Lahood shoot up the camp. Megan Wheeler, a 14-year old girl there, is horrified when the thugs gun down her dog in cold blood. The thugs leave the camp torn up and nearly destroyed. Megan buries her dog out in the woods, and prays to God for help. After she prays, we see a stranger heading to the town on horseback.

Megan's mother, Sarah, is keeping company with Hull Barret, the leader of the miners. Hull heads off into town to pick up supplies, but the same thugs start to beat him up. The stranger arrives and swiftly beats up all of the thugs single handedly with a mattock handle. Hull thanks the stranger and invites him to his house, and the stranger relucantly agrees. Sarah is skeptical of the stranger, but he dons a preacher's outfit and is shown to be unarmed, and everyone thus calls him the Preacher. The Preacher helps the miners pan for gold and peacefully keeps the thugs from returning to the camp.

The Preacher eventually meets Coy LaHood's son Josh who attempts to scare the Preacher by a show of strength from his strongest work hand, Club, who smashes a large rock with one blow of a hammer that the Preacher and Hull had been laboring over. When Club attempts to harm the Preacher, the Preacher disarms him, hits him in the face and delivers a hammer blow to Club's groin. After helping Club back onto his horse, the Preacher sends Josh and Club on their way. Coy LaHood finds out about the Preacher through his son and instead of killing the preacher, out of fear of making him a martyr among the pan handlers, decides to try to bribe him with money and a church in hopes he will leave the camp, but the Preacher refuses. The Preacher asks if LaHood would be willing to buy the miners out and gets a final offer of $1,000 per claim. If the miners don't leave within 24 hours, LaHood will hire a special marshall named Stockburn to clear them out.

The miners initially want to take the offer, and ask the Preacher for his advice. He offers little, but Hull reminds of them of why they came, and what they have sacrificed. The miners decide to stay and fight. The next morning, however, the Preacher deserts the miners, leaving them scared and alone without any help. Megan, who has grown fond of the Preacher, also heads out looking for him, but Josh captures her and attempts to rape her. Before he can do anything serious, the Preacher arrives on horseback, armed with a Remington revolver, and shoots Josh in the hand. The Preacher takes Megan back to the camp.

Stockburn arrives and he and his gang gun down one of the miners, Spider, when he attempted to take on Stockburn himself. LaHood describes the Preacher to Stockburn, and Stockburn says that he sounds like someone that he once knew, but that man is dead.

The Preacher teams up with Hull and they go to LaHood's mining facility and blow it up with dynamite. In the chaos Josh LaHood attempts to shoot the Preacher in the back but is stopped by Club out of respect for the Preacher. After scaring off Hull's horse, to stop him from following him into battle, the Preacher then heads alone into the town, where he easily guns down all of Coy's thugs. Stockburn sends his deputies after the Preacher, but he shoots all of them one by one throughout the town. The Preacher then faces Stockburn alone in a classic western showdown. The Preacher approaches Stockburn and only when he is a few feet away does Stockburn recognize him, crying "You! YOU!" and grabbing for his gun. The Preacher draws first and empties his gun into Stockburn. As a dying Stockburn tries to raise his gun, the Preacher grabs his backup pistol and finishes off Stockburn with a shot to the head. Coy Lahood has witnessed the shootout and aims a rifle at the Preacher, but Hull arrives and shoots with his own rifle and kills Coy.

The Preacher rides out from a barn, now mounted on a horse. He looks at Hull who is surveying the remains of the battle and mutters to him, "Long walk." Hull responds with a simple, "Yep." The Preacher smirks and rides off into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Megan gets to the town, but the Preacher has already left. As he rides off into the mountains, the film ends with Megan crying out to him from the town shouting her thanks and words of love.

After ‘Unforgiven’, it is probably my favorite Western directed by Clint Eastwood. Indeed, the first thing I really enjoyed with this flick, is that the main character portrayed by Eastwood was a throwback to his most legendary role, ‘the man with no name’ , immortalized in all those great Spaghetti Westerns directed by the great master Sergio Leone. Apparently, this time, this character was also a ghost which is something, I must confess, I completely missed when I watched this flick so I guess I should double-check this when I get the opportunity. Anyway, if ‘Unforgiven’ was really brilliant because it was a very grim and, my opinion, a very original take on your typical Western figures and mythology, this one was on the other hand actually pretty straightforward and it was its only real weakness. However, even though it doesn’t break any new ground, it was still really entertaining. Indeed, even though it did lack in originality, it was still a very fine picture made by one of the most iconic figures in this genre. As a result, the directing was pretty flawless and Clint Eastwood was, as usual, completely charismatic, really convincing and a total bad-ass, the kind of guy you’d rather have on your side. To conclude, even though it is a rather classic Western, I really enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.