Clint Eastwood is a Cop Who Hates Everybody

Dirty Harry

                The first interesting fact about this movie is that Clint Eastwood’s famous line of “Do you feel lucky, punk?” actually comes quite early on, although it does come again later on at the end.    This movie is about a cop named Harry (portrayed by Clint Eastwood) who pretty much hates everybody and is willing to go to whatever lengths of violence are necessary in order to get the job done.  

                Although this isn’t a western in any sense (Except for maybe the gun play and Eastwood being the star), I don’t really have a blog fit for this review, so I’ve just stuck it here with what will become many other Clint Eastwood movies reviewed, as I primarily view Eastwood as an actor in westerns regardless of what else he may have done or do in the future. 

                This whole movie is pretty much about Harry trying to save a little girl and it kind of reminds me of Sin City in that way.    It truly is a great movie, a classic for all of the right reasons and not just because it spawned several not-as-good sequels.  

So Good Metallica Wrote a Song about It

Unforgiven

                This seems like not only a somewhat standard plot for Clint Eastwood western movies, but also a standard plot for westerns in general.  Our opening scene is the brutal maiming of a prostitute and the only sort of action taken as punishment is those responsible get fined.    So this kid- who I always just think of as “kid”, you know like in Dick Tracy- goes out and hires Will Munny, who was once the baddest man in all of the west.  

                Will manages to recruit his former partner, Ned (Morgan Freeman) and then after some obvious fighting the three begin their quest to kill the men who cut up a lady.   

                What first struck me funny about this movie is the way the game telephone comes into play.   When the kid tells Will, and then Will tells Ned, it seems like the details of just how badly this woman was cut up get worse and worse.   What’s even more so is that it seems to be less played upon the fact that she is a prostitute.   I’m not saying prostitutes are less than human, but in Detroit if a whore got cut no one would flinch.                  

                Toward the end of the movie, as Will and the kid have managed to kill off everyone except Gene Hackman, we find out that Ned has died.   This actually made me really sad and I wish it wasn’t a part of this movie.   It gave Will Munny this very clear vengeance to go through and shoot everyone and anyone who got in his way, sure, but we never actually got to see any sort of closure on the subject.   For all of the pain and torment that Will Munny’s character goes through during the course of this movie, you would have to imagine that the worst of it comes when he tells Ned’s widow the news. 

The Sequel is Not My Problem

3:10 to Yuma (1957)

                This original movie based on the Elmore Leonard story has Van Heflin and Glenn Ford as the stars.    It’s not as long as the remake you’ve probably seen with Christian Bale, yet my wife somehow managed to remark that it seemed to be slower moving.    I will always prefer the black and white classics to their modern day counterparts.

                I especially like the end of this movie because the criminal says he’s broken out of Yuma a bunch of times so it doesn’t really faze him having to go there.    At the same time, his captor says that he just has to get him to Yuma, what he does when he gets there is not his concern.   So after the whole, intense, sort of life or death movie with seeing the job through to the end, it concludes with somewhat of a joke.   I liked that.   I thought it was a nice touch.

The Priest Collar is Coming Off

Pale Rider

                In this movie, Clint Eastwood plays a preacher who comes to town and tries to stop some bullies.   It’s kind of your typical western movie, only with Clint Eastwood shooting up people and a lot of other people being shot a lot too.  

                This movie is directed by Eastwood also, and let me tell you, when he takes off his Daffy Duck/preachers collar and picks up his guns I got goose bumps because I knew it was going down. 

                Who is this character and where did he come from?  It doesn’t really matter, and that’s what I like about this movie also.   If this was made nowadays it’d need seven prequels as a back story.    Sometimes you just want to see someone do what’s right and shoot a bunch of bad guys with terrible aim.

Should John Wayne Stay or Should He Go: The Angel and the Bad Man (1946)

Should John Wayne Stay or Should He Go: The Angel and the Bad Man (1946)

                For some reason- and you can call it the western fool inside of me- I thought that this movie would be about an actual angel (good guy) and a bad man (bad guy) squaring off in the old west and all that.    I assumed for some reason that John Wayne’s character would be the angel and he would have to protect or save someone from the bad man for reasons that involve riding lots of horses and shooting at each other.

                I was wrong.   The angel is not John Wayne.   The bad man is John Wayne.   The angel is actually also a woman.   John Wayne meets a woman in this movie and must decide if he wants to stay and settle down with her, and her somewhat ordinary way of life, or if he wants to go back out into the wild, wild west and be the bad man that he was before he met her.  

                This movie- while having some great action sequences- provides that ultimate question that anyone who has ever been in love or wants to be in love must face.    It’s that whole idea of being free vs. settling down, though settling down doesn’t mean losing all of your freedom. 

John Wayne with an Eye Patch: TRUE GRIT (1969)

John Wayne with an Eye Patch: TRUE GRIT (1969)

                In this movie about cowboys and their hunt for a fugitive, a young girl whose parents were murdered hires the services of Rooster Cogburn to assist her.   Another fellow comes in along the way, he being portrayed here by Glenn Campbell.   

                So their quest- with a few obstacles along the way- brings them closer together while also leaving them farther apart in the end.    This is one of those movies that you simply have to see to believe, as Rooster Cogburn is a character all unto himself.   I could (or someone else out there probably could) write an entire biography just for Rooster Cogburn.  

                I will confess to also seeing the remake of this film.   The one with Matt Damon in the Glenn Campbell role.   They were fairly similar, which is why I think the remake did so well.   It seems as if some scenes were even copied to the word, but don’t quote me on that.

                Overall, this is a great cowboy movie even if it doesn’t have a lot of shooting action (Oh, but they do shoot quite a bit still) and most importantly it has a nice plot because they seem to have a sense of purpose with the little girl who is too smart for her age.