Pale Rider (1985)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
A mysterious preacher protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to encroach on their land.
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What critics compared Pale Rider to
It’s fun in the sense that you can reward yourself for spotting the references (Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter are given visual nods, while the raw style of Sergio Leone also looms large at several points).
This is not a new idea—it was the core of Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider (1985), for instance—but it gives the formula a more modern feel that makes it even easier to identify with the victims.
On the whole, the film, adapted by Nic Pizzolatto (“True Detective”) and Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer”), resembles Clint Eastwood’s 1985 masterpiece “Pale Rider” as much as John Sturges’ 1960 film.
It’s fitting casting as Statham channels Clint Eastwood in “High Plains Drifter” (1973) or “Pale Rider” (1985) as an immortal being unleashing divine payback in a film marked with chapter titles like “A Scorched Earth.”
• For much of the film, Jackman’s Logan sports a full beard and a somewhat dated hairstyle that makes him look like Clint Eastwood circa “Pale Rider” and “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”
That fact alone puts him in distinguished company: with the Preacher in “Pale Rider” (1985), for instance, played by Clint Eastwood, who had already enshrined the Man with No Name in three al-dente Westerns.
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The film opens as a western, with Winslet’s dressmaker Tilly Dunnage arriving in lonely Dungatar, a Pale Rider sheriff here to clean up this godforsaken town, armed only with a Singer sewing machine.
It's Roy Rogers meets Pale Rider, with funnier songs and a heavenly final twist.
Although known predominantly for his stoic roles in westerns like "A Fistful of Dollars," "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly," and "Pale Rider," it was his unforgettable turn as Dirty Harry that solidified his star status.