Rent High Plains Drifter (1973)

Paint the Town Red, Call It Hell - High Plains Drifter review by griggs

The good citizens of Lago will give Clint Eastwood anything he wants, provided he does their dirty work. He helps himself to the booze, then appoints Mordecai, the man they've spent years kicking around, as sheriff and mayor. Backbones, sadly, aren't for sale.

What I loved was the paranoia. Everyone in town has something to hide, and the Stranger seems to know exactly what it is. He shimmers out of the heat haze like a guilty conscience on horseback. By the time Eastwood paints the town red and renames it Hell, subtlety has caught the last stagecoach out. I didn't miss it.

I kept thinking of Yojimbo. Sanjuro at least has a code. This Stranger enjoys the suffering a bit too much.

The trouble is how it treats women. Callie's rape is ugly, yet the film sometimes mistakes sexual aggression for sex appeal, particularly with Sarah.

Eastwood digs up the Western hero's ugly side, then seems rather pleased with what he's found.

Quite good - High Plains Drifter review by sb

Yes you can tell Clint Eatwood had just stepped out of the Leone trilogy of spaghetti westerns , many references to those 3 amazing films, the score, style of acting, camera angles, dark story line and so on.

Doesn't quite work on the sound, bit irritating, jarring at times and feels slightly out of sync - acting is quite good- story line - great- just some of the composition is clumsy, lacks the depth and Leone style, the leone style kinda of makes the film more interesting. Not as good as the later 'Josey Wales', though Clint is just learning his craft so it can be forgiven.

Highly original 70s Western - High Plains Drifter review by GI

Clint Eastwood's second film as director is heavily influenced by the style of Sergio Leone especially A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) and there are similarities in a few scenes both from a story perspective and theme, and it's one of Eastwood's most violent films. This includes some questionable depictions of sexual violence and this has resulted in the film being dismissed today as gratuitous. Even taking Eastwood's mysterious stranger as a western anti hero it is a shock when he carries out a brutal rape in the early stages of the story. But this is a very original take on the revenge western and Eastwood, almost solely, has made big efforts throughout the 70s and beyond to keep the western alive and in High Plains Drifter he added the most interesting element of the supernatural although he has always denied the main character is in anyway supernatural but he's deliberately sidelining the strong images and narrative clues that lead the viewer to this interpretation. The opening and closing shots of the drifter appearing and disappearing are the most famous but there are other significant hints, not least the drifter's ability to remarkably guess what various other characters are about to do. In the small gold mining town of Lago a mysterious stranger arrives one morning and threatened by the three town bullies quickly despatches them demonstrating he's a gunfighter of exceptional skill. But the town has a dark secret that's connected with the release of three bad guys from prison who are expected by the townspeople to arrive and reek revenge on them. They hire the stranger to protect them but he too has a sinister agenda. Above all this is a tremendously entertaining film with the great Geoffrey Lewis as a sadistic outlaw and a host of actors that Eastwood used in many of his films. This film is also a fine example of Eastwood's ability to make a film on a small scale, it is tightly shot and edited with some great western vista cinematography, this is a cut above other films from this period. A great example of a 70s revenge western and an important film in the genre.