Rating: 
Summary: One of The Best Westerns Ever!
Review: Clint Eastwood is back in the saddle after a nine year break from the genre that made him famous. He plays the mysterious preacher, who comes to the aid of a settlement mining for gold.Watch for Richard Kiel the 7 foot actor who played Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me & Moonraker
Rating: 
Summary: Pale Western
Review: CLINT EASTWOOD returned to the saddle after almost a decade with the film PALE RIDER. He alternated duties between acting the mysterious dark hero only known as "Preacher" and as the films director. And in the end, PALE RIDER is a sturdy Western. It also tends to be predictable as most Western's are, since they travel by such strict mythic guidelines.Land hungry villains relentlessly harass some prospectors. Just when their spirit is about to break, The Preacher arrives and revitalizes the village, giving them the desire to fight. Of course the powerful villainous leader, Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart) wants their inspiration wiped out so he brings in some hired guns to eliminate the Preacher. And, like so many other Westerns, it will all be sorted out by a gunfight in the middle of town. PALE RIDER is a simple story with the exception of an awkward love triangle involving a mother and daughter. That alone is the only drawback to the solid storytelling. Clint himself emits extreme star power over the film, even with a minimum of dialogue. And of course, this is a must for his core fans and those who love westerns. The DVD offers both a widescreen and pan and scan transfer which loses much of the beautiful expansive scenery. But in both transfers, there are problems in the dark end signaling a standard transfer. The audio is only sufficient for a DVD. But, the film doesn't play like a spectacle so none of that matters. There is nothing of major note in the arena of extra features except a text discussion of Clint on Directing and trailers for the film as well as Eastwood's next Western, the Oscar Winning UNFORGIVEN.
Rating: 
Summary: "High Plains Drifter" Meets "Shane"
Review: Clint Eastwood's "Pale Rider" (1985) is an entertaining yet derivative Western that represents the flip side of the actor-director's "High Plains Drifter" -- a far-superior effort. Though Eastwood delivers a fine performance as the mysterious Preacher, with good support from Michael Moriarty and Carrie Snodgress, the overall film lacks the dramatic resonance of "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "Unforgiven." Instead, "Pale Rider" tries to evoke the classic tradition of George Stevens' "Shane" -- and partially succeeds. The film has some good action sequences, but drags a bit in the midsection. Still, a flawed Eastwood Western is better than none at all.
Rating:
Summary: "High Plains Drifter" Meets "Shane"
Review: Clint Eastwood's "Pale Rider" (1985) is an entertaining yet derivative Western that represents the flip side of the actor-director's "High Plains Drifter" -- a far-superior effort. Though Eastwood delivers a fine performance as the mysterious Preacher, with good support from Michael Moriarty and Carrie Snodgress, the overall film lacks the dramatic resonance of "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "Unforgiven." Instead, "Pale Rider" tries to evoke the classic tradition of George Stevens' "Shane" -- and partially succeeds. The film has some good action sequences, but drags a bit in the midsection. Still, a flawed Eastwood Western is better than none at all.
Rating:
Summary: A good honest western
Review: Clint is the Old Wests hand of God in this classic good vs evil western. A powerful performance by all.
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: Clint's acting is great, the plot is ok though a little slow in parts. There is nothin' like a good piece of hickory....
Rating: 
Summary: No charm, no style, no credibility. Left me pale.
Review: How anyone could give this movie a rating of three or higher is beyond me. I might as well come out and say it: Pale Rider is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, which is quite a feat, considering my standards are pretty low when it comes to westerns. This is because I *want* to like westerns. I invite them into my heart. Give me epic, lonely landscapes, a badass gunfighter, some horses and a romantic, sepia-tinted view of the pioneer days--and I'm delighted. Honestly, it doesn't take much to entertain me! Throw in a few ballsy one-liners, and I'll probably watch the movie a second time. But don't give me Pale Rider. I watched this film with some friends, all of us eager to see one more Eastwood western. From the opening monologue, we knew we were in for a bad ride. Only thing we didn't know is just HOW bad this ride would get. When the daughter isn't delivering lines like she's Sam's understudy on "Who's the Boss?", the other supporting actors--some of them quite good--are tripping all over themselves in the attempt to really OWN those hammy lines of dialogue and make them sound natural rather than... well, bad. This is one of those movies where one is constantly reminded of the script writers themselves (it took two geniuses to stitch this mess together) as they struggle through revision after revision, never quite seizing the magic that makes dialogue both natural and efficient. Instead of being drawn into the story, I kept asking myself, "Do the script writers really believe someone would say that? Did this look good on paper to them?" I challenge anyone to sit through the melodramatic rock pounding scene without smirking or chuckling under your breath. Try watching it with friends--you'll either be groaning or belly-laughing. Watch that preacher unify the camp and lift the spirits of the poor miners. Watch them all pound that rock. It's hilarious. It's also one of the few times you'll notice the film's music suddenly lurching to a climax. I'm betting the sparse scatterings of music throughout the film are borrowed from stock: no charm, no theme. I'm trying to present my review in some kind of an organized manner, but Pale Rider failed in so many ways-- both subtle and blatant, big and small--that it's like trying to put spilt ratatouille back in the pot, one stewed vegetable at a time. It's all one big mush no matter how diligant you are. How about the directing? Look, I think Eastwood ended up directing some fantastic films, and perhaps some of blame here lies on the cinematographer, but this film had no vision and no style. Unless the vision was to make every shot be just close enough to get one actor's head and shoulders into the frame and NOTHING ELSE. Wait until another character speaks; then lock onto that guy's head and shoulders. Wait until the girl speaks; film her head and shoulders. This whole movie could have been performed by animatronic marble busts of ancient Greeks. You'd only need to call in the human actors once every ten minutes, when Eastwood decided it was time to show several bodies in one frame--though not with any style to speak of. Halfway through Pale Rider, I thought I was going to have a claustrophobic panic attack from the camera's unflagging refusal to pull back and show the entourage, the landscape, or any interest in what is going on other than the interest a ship's porthole might have for the sea: "Look through my hole; there's Eastwood saying something. Now look again. There's someone else saying something else. I would show you more but I'm only big enough to show head and shoulders." Even considering who (or what) Eastwood's character turns out to be (don't worry, the writers spell it out for you as though the already know the camera won't get the job done), the camera STILL doesn't show him in any interesting way. He's just your average gunslinging preacher seen through a porthole. Of course, widening the shot would have revealed to anyone with eyesight worse than -3.00 all the goofy mat paintings. At one point, we thought the daughter character was going to run right through a painting, and we all burst into laughter. Another such moment came when Eastwood was lurking around town. Behind him, a breath-taking vista of western mountains. Okay, I confess, it was a massive, admittedly impressive mat painting that looked like it took so much work to create that it left me wondering--why not just find a cheap location somewhere in California or Spain and actually FILM THE ENVIRONMENT? And speaking of Eastwood, he does not redeem this film. Even if all you want to do is watch Eastwood kick ass and hiss out some unforgettable clinchers, prepare to be underwhelmed. Every time a character says something that begs answering, and everyone else shuts up, and the camera locks onto Eastwood's bust, and you just KNOW he's going to kick you in the jaw with a tidy one-liner that might as well be the villain's epitaph--whimper. That's you get, a whimper. Something like, "Yeah, I guess so." "Alright then." "We'll see." That's what comes out of the script writers' word processors after several revisions. They give Clint Eastwood a perfect set-up so that he can slam dunk with the biting, insightful statement: "I guess I'll go to town." Eh? Thanks for nothing. To say nothing of the incredible (as in, lacking credibility) idea the villains would desperately try to bribe this preacher out of town instead of just muscling the poor miners away like they were planning to anyway. Oh right, they give him 24 hours to leave. How accommodating of them. To say nothing of the evil marshall and his robotic deputies. I could go on and on. Forgettable dialogue (at best), uninspired style, no pay-off in the finale. This movie is only passable if passable means just laughable enough to carry you through to the snore-fest ending gunbattle. Passable if you mean the equivalent to a typical Van Damn movie--without the leg split scenes.
Rating:
Summary: A colder, more violent version of SHANE
Review: I agree with one of the previous reviewers (Robert Morris) in his comparative analysis of Pale Rider and Shane. I would only add that the colors and atmosphere of Shane are much warmer, and the feeling in the film is one of new life and fresh starts, with the homesteading family and the young boy, a child, far from grown, all striving against the cattle ranchers in Wyoming. By contrast in Pale Rider, it seems clear Eastwood wanted to show a family struggling at the end of their rope, at their last gasp, far from any new beginning. The child in Pale Rider is a teen girl, about to become a woman and take on the hard life of women in a mining town. Her mother looks worn out but is probably supposed to be not yet thirty. The colors in Pale Ride are pale and bleak, the atmosphere snowy and cold and gray, the earth ravaged by the mining operation. The feeling of Pale Rider is bleak and scary, even though Eastwood saves the day in the end. Shane is much more upbeat, even though there is the sadness of the hero riding off alone in the end.
Rating:
Summary: MIKE 2922 Is Full of It!
Review: I did read some (but not many) of his reviews. (I think he's about 15). He called this movie "better than 'Unforgiven'." (Where do these people come from?) This movie is like a rehash of "High Plains Drifter" with an embarrassing rip-off of Shane at the end. We get it, Clint, the otherwordly (possibly a ghost) avenger who helps the victims of the west. A well-done rehash for sure with Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, western veteran John Russell, and assorted other interesting faces. Thanks for moving onto "Unforgiven", "Bridges of Madison County", "Mystic River" and so many more. (Did one of your women inspire you?). There were mystical episodes of Clint's old TV show "Rawhide". Maybe that's why we had so many "mystical" avengers. Stick with William Munny. And ignore MIKE 2922 every time.
Rating: 
Summary: A storyline too close to 'Shane'
Review: I found this movie to be way too close to 'Shane'. It was badly directed by Eastwood and his acting was not much better either. I don't usually mind Eastwood but this is a shocking example of his work. If you are a Clint Eastwood fan it is worth watching but otherwise, don't bother.
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