Clint, you’re a badass actor and director. I’ve seen other movies of yours that have become my all time favorites. But I reckon this one doesn’t make the cut.
The Outlaw Josey Wales moves so quickly into Josey’s transformation that we’re asked to invest emotionally before we’ve had time to connect with the man he was. There’s no real build up to Josey becoming a man hell bent on revenge. We’re supposed to feel bad for a man who has lost everything, but it doesn’t feel earned. You never get to meet the family or see what kind of a father Josey Wales was. I think the idea was to show how sudden violence can be, which makes sense, but it doesn’t help the audience connect to the character.
Even though the film frames Josey more as a betrayed man rather than a cross Confederate loyalist, the optics of rooting for former rebels while Union forces are portrayed as villains makes the moral terrain a little weird. It’s a moral gray area but fortunately the movie never veers into “lost myth” territory. This is a story about a man that fell victim to a war that he never asked to be a part of. And the movie does do a good job at showing the chaos of a post Civil War America, where there probably would have been corrupt officials and soldiers that only used the Union as a pretext to settle scores and exploit a broken system.
That being said, the shootouts are sharp, the Missouri landscapes are beautifully photographed, and the standoff with Ten Bears is a genuinely tense and subversive moment. The speech Josey gives prior to the blood oath perfectly encapsulates the idea that two oppressed groups can align for survival. And I think that’s really what the movie is trying to say. People should be united by their commonalities and not divided by their governments. It’s a great message that gets buried under all the other baggage it carries.
Like I said, it’s a solid looking western and I’ve seen worse. I respect what it’s trying to do. I just don’t feel what (I think) it’s trying to make me feel.
“Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’, boy.”