The Outlaw Josey Wales

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1975) is a sprawling Western that isn't the sum of its parts. It's definitely on a list with Rio Bravo and The Magnificent Seven as a Western with lots of great scenes, but that doesn't quite come together.

Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) is a Missouri farmer who watches his family get massacred by Captain Terril's (Bill McKinney) Unionist "redlegs." Josey joins a Confederate guerilla band and refuses to surrender when the war is over, thus avoiding the massacre of his old unit. Josey escapes the carnage and is trailed by Terril and Fletcher (John Vernon), Josey's old commander whose dragooned into serving. Josey winds up in Texas, where he runs into fugitive Indian Lone Watie (Chief Dan George), a family of Jayhawkers and an ever-present hound and begins to consider settling down. However, he still has to settle old scores with Terril.

Josey Wales is more ambitious than Eastwood's previous Western, High Plains Drifter, with an epic scope and broader thematic concerns. However, the film suffers from a rambling story. The narrative doesn't gel and it lurches from scene to scene without flow or focus. Things really go off the rails when Josey meets up with the Jayhawkers. The film tries to play up themes of Josey rebuilding his shattered family, but it's not really interesting when the family is so obnoxious; you'll almost be cheering for the Redlegs at film's end.

What does work are individual scenes, and there are plenty of gems for Western fans. Eastwood's single-handed rescue of Laura Lee (Sondra Locke) from lecherous Comancheros rivals Sean Connery's swordfight on the beach in The Wind and the Lion for unbridled macho badassery. Josey's parlay with Indian chief Ten Bears (Will Sampson) is sensitive and affecting, as, in a different way, is his confrontation with John Davis Chandler's squirrely bounty hunter ("Dyin' ain't much of a living"). The film's sardonic sense of humor is also a plus, with Clint spitting tobacco every which way and Lone Watie providing a stream of funny wisecracks.

Clint the actor is in top form. Josey is a lot more talkative than the Man With No Name and even deadlier: with his half-dozen pistols and Gatling Gun prowess he's a walking weapons platform. However, he's also a more complex character, a bitter man reluctantly attracted to the prospect of regaining his old life, but unwilling to give up his revenge. Clint's understated acting style and self-effacing sense of humor serves the character perfectly, and this might be his best performance.

The supporting cast is mixed. John Vernon (Dirty Harry) is the standout, making Fletcher believably tortured by his predicament. Chief Dan George essentially reprises his role from Little Big Man, and is just as amusing. Will Sampson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) makes Ten Bears one of Hollywood's most interesting Indian chiefs. However, the useless Sondra Locke and obnoxious Paula Trueman stink up the second half. Bill McKinney (The Parallax View) makes a disappointing, one-dimensional villain. Len Lesser (Kelly's Heroes), John Davis Chandler (Ride the High Country) and John Mitchum play various bounty hunters, and Matt Clark (Jeremiah Johnson) and Royal Dano (Man of the West) turns up towards the end.

The Outlaw Josey Wales is a good film that achieves a level of mythic grandeur. However, its too flawed in plotting and pacing to be an all-time classic.