"Your feet ma'am are almost as big as your mouth." Damn this is one mean spirited western. I did not expect that at all but it is an entertaining one. High Plains Drifter is just so damn brutal. Every character basically is out for his or herself, the town of Lago is one horrible place to live. I do think the town looked better when it was painted over. Anyway even when Clint Eastwood plays such a horrible person he still oozes cool. There is just something about the man not many people have. The way he shoots those guys at the barber, epic stuff. Anyway the townspeople of Lago needed someone to save their town and they gave up everything for it. It is bizarre to see. You think you've met the worst person but everyone is horrible. You almost want the returning "bad guys" to win. Best part? The damn ending. I love the mystery it provokes and I was so happy this one showed up on Netflix this week. Never expected to watch a Western but damn I should watch them even more. Ps. Mordecai for president!

I don't have much to say about 'High Plains Drifter'. It didn't thrill me or anything, but it did keep my attention from start-to-finish so it's evidently a good film. Clint Eastwood is the only cast member worth talking about, he gives a commanding performance in the lead role. Geoffrey Lewis, a frequent castmate of Eastwood's, is the best of the rest, if I had to pick. The film does feature dark themes, which helps the film's pacing out a lot. It's nothing special in my eyes, though there is entertainment there no doubt. It's a borderline 8* rating for me, but not quite.

Clear predecessor of his masterpiece Without forgiveness.

Clint Eastwood stars and directs in this shameless Leone homage from the early '70s. Eastwood's unnamed horse-mounted strangers have never been the friendliest characters in the west, but in this instance he takes things to a whole new level. He's quick with guns of several varieties, mowing down three rowdy bar patrons and raping a bystander in the film's uncomfortable opening scene, then settling in to take the surviving villagers for all they're worth when he's hired for protection. As it turns out, the village has a few dirty secrets of its own, and its leaders soon resort to a wide variety of veiled threats and bumbling backstabs to keep them quiet. That leaves absolutely no one in the clear as a moral compass, even the twisted preacher, and the film soon settles in to spinning lazy circles like a rudderless ship. Misogynistic, mean-spirited and narrow, it's not a whole lot of fun to watch beyond a few sporadic action shots and one or two well-placed puns. A far cry from the unspoken atmosphere, dense moral grey area and thick, palpable character of the Spaghetti Westerns that made Clint's name in the mid '60s.

I love Clint Eastwood, and I love his movies but this one hasn't aged well. The story is tired and worn out, and some of the shenanigans Eastwood's character pulls in this movie, well, they just wouldn't have been tolerated back in those times. There are a number of things that, although they make for a good movie, are just too far-fetched and don't reconcile with the life and times of that particular era. Additionally, some of the "violence" is downright laughable by today's standards. It was probably a great western back in its time, when first released, but by today's standards, it just didn't make for a real entertaining viewing. There was simply too much that was too old and outdated here.