Rating: 
Summary: an homage to clint westerns
Review: yes the story is similar to shane (although the preacher was
(likely) dead before the film starts, compared to shane who
was (likely) dead as the film ends)but if anything this was more like a retrospective of clint's
western characters, with a hint of Dirty Harry thrown in
for good measure the parallel with High Plains Drifter is obvious; the ending
where LaHood gets shot is straight out of Joe Kidd. the character
of the preacher is a pastiche of the man-with-no-name; the way the last deputy is dispatched looks like a scene from Hang 'Em
High (and after all, by then he had fired 6 shots -- or was it
only 5?)
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: You might be tempted for thinking that a theme as routinely mythic as the lone gunman saving a town would make for some fairly predictable stuff, but Pale Rider defies the odds and achieves a wholly new level in the genre. This is partly due to the extreme simplicity of the plot (Mining tyrant attempts a ruthless eviction of honest settlers), the astonishing scenery, but mainly a result of Eastwood's gritty, monosyllabic anti-hero, who by the end of the film seems completely enigmatic, genuinely mythic. The film draws on the old Kurosawa themes so richly plundered in 'The Magnificent Seven' and other films of the like, but this is finally a simple, age-old tale, beautifully filmed and a perfectly executed tour-de-force. It's better, even, than 'Unforgiven' and that's saying something.
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