The Outlaw Josey Wales | | Cast : | Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke | | Director : | Clint Eastwood | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | June 30, 1976 | | DVD Released Date : | May 18, 2004 | | Language : | Unknown (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 26, 2005 | | Summary | Another Wonderful Offering By Clint Eastwood!!! | Content
 | This would have to be one of my favourite Western movies. It concerns a farmer named Josey played by Clint Eastwood whose family are brutally murdered by renegade Northern soldiers in the Civil War. Josey then joins the fight and he is soon on the run to the Indian Nations. This movie is very funny at times which is quite rare for a Western. Josey is a loner who just wants his solitude but by the end of the movie his entourage includes two Native Americans, one old lady, a pretty young girl (Sondra Locke), a couple of guys who frequent the local dry saloon, a dance hall girl PLUS a dog!!! The late Chief Dan George is also wonderful in this movie and helps to reveal Josey's humanity. Do yourself a big favour and rent or buy this movie!!! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 20, 2005 | | Summary | Ya can't get em all Josey.. | Content
| Forrest Carter wrote three books of note. The Education of Little Tree, Watch for Me on the Mountain and Gone to Texas/Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales. The last one, Clint made into The Outlaw Josey Wales staring Clint of course. This is a great western that Clint even liked, as the extras on the DVD show. Here we have a loner type that joins the fight against the Red Legs, that killed his wife and son, and after his outfit get massacred becomes an outlaw. He keeps picking up strays all the way to the final battle scene. I know Clint got the Oscar for "Unforgiven" but I enjoyed Outlaw Josey Wales much more. This is a movie that is worth adding to your collection. John Vernon's line to Senator Lane of...."Senator don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining"...is classic. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 06, 2005 | | Summary | "I guess we all died a little in that damn war..." | Content
| I saw Josey Wales for the first time when I was 15, and I couldn't get enough of it: action, excitement, great lines, utterly believable! You really believe Clint Eastwood is Josey Wales, a Missouri farmer whose family was killed by marauders and who becomes an outlaw searching for revenge. This movie is about both his scarring (emotional and physical) and his healing. The farmer becomes a cold blooded killer, and then a feeling living person once more. As he says to John Vernon at the end of the movie, "I guess we all died a little in that damn war." This is a violent , even brutal film. Particularly hard to watch is the near-rape scene of Sondra Locke. At the same time, Eastwood makes you realize what a brutal place the West really was. There's no sentiment here. In light of Eastwood's masterful 1992 western "Unforgiven," I think Josey Wales takes on a new significance. That film, an extended meditation on violence and its effect on both perpetrator and victim, is arguably one of the most significant in the entire history of the genre. In this 1976 film he's dealing with the same issues, and as such is a forerunner of Eastwood's most masterful work as a director. It's a movie you can watch on a couple of levels. First and foremost, it's a great actioner with a great cast and great lines. Chief Dan George is absolutely wonderful. In some ways he is the heart and soul of this movie, the one person who does more than anyone else to bring about Josey's re-humanization, if you will. This is a more complex and significant film than it was given credit for being when it appeared in 1976. Watch it and enjoy! |
| Rating | | | Date | June 04, 2005 | | Summary | Eastwood Grows as an Artist | Content
| Clint Eastwood continuously surprises me by his ability to show he's learned from his own craft. His career is one of evolvement. Most actors and directors are content to simply stay the course. Practically every movie Eastwood puts out is more mature and challenging than the previous one. In The Outlaw Josey Wales, Eastwood displays everything he had learned about the Western & moviemaking up to that point. Filled with a grim dark humor & tremendously violent, the movie depicts a largely lawless society of renegades and corrupt officials. Eastwood's by now familiar disdain for all the trappings of authority is on full display. As usual the good guys are just as bad as the bad guys. Josey Wales refuses to surrender at the end of the Civil War and, driven by vengeance & madness, makes his way from Missouri to Texas, killing all the way. He aquires an unlikely posse of Indians and women who threaten his lone wolf outcast standing. He gets a taste of civilization & begins to see how men can live in peace and harmony. Compelling & elegiac, The Outlaw Josey Wales shows a man at war with himself and the world around him. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 29, 2005 | | Summary | Eastwood's alltime best | Content
| This film meets and surpasses all expectations. If you are a fan of westerns, or of Clint Eastwood in particular, this film is a must-own.
Eastwood plays a man whose family is brutally murdered by the Redlegs, a band of guerilla warriors who fought for Kansas under the leadership of the dastardly Jennison and his "Jayhawkers" during the Civil War. They were the foil of William Clarke Quantrill and his followers who fought for Missouri during the war. (For more on this conflict, albeit with an unfortunate Jayhawk-slant, see the recent film "Ride with the Devil".)
As for its treatment of the Civil War, this film follows "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" in the sense that it does not explicitly take a side. It does, however, present characters that are much more aware of a war going on and who are much more partisan about it than were the bit-players in that last of the Leone trilogy.
Yet Eastwood's film here abandons the partisanship that so embodies even a contemporary discussion of the war in the American South. Despite his family being brutally murdered by Kansans, Josey Wales ultimately rises above the conflict in his attempt to get what he wants out of life. Josey is rightfully distrustful of the Union, but he doesn't translate that into a political vendetta. The conflict does not destroy him, even when the prejudices of anti-Confederate Kansans are poised to strike him down.
The story finds Josey making unlikely friendships with those he encounters along his way, and provides many good-natured comic moments in those encounters. Josey Wales is the quintessential Western character, an average farmer who is dragged into conflicts larger than his own by the circumstances around him, forced to play a role that he never is fully willing to embrace.
Eastwood, despite being new to directing, delivers on the potential of this film in full. The cinematography is consistently engaging, the soundtrack is interesting, and the performances are stellar. This is definitely a 70's style western, and Eastwood practically defines the era with this picture.
If you are a fan of the Leone trilogy wondering whether Eastwood was ever as good apart from those films, then this is the one to see. If you are an Eastwood fan from his recent films, then this is a great introduction to the skills he would consistently display as a director in the future. If you are looking at this film from the viewpoint of a typical western-genre fan, you will not be disappointed by this film's excellent story and great performances. Basically, everyone who would be lead to this review on amazon.com is a person who would enjoy this film.
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