5 reasons you might like The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

I’ve been going through my shelves trying to knock out some of my unwatched pile and I realized that I had never seen The Outlaw Josey Wales. I have this one in 4K, so I fired up the projector and gave it a shot.

I am Jason Kleeberg, this is Force Five, and today I’m going to give you 5 reasons you might want to check out The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Reason number 5, this film feels like the change in perspective of the American Western going forward and it’s cool to see how that came to life. Many people associate Clint Eastwood with Westerns and rightfully so, he’s been in some of the best westerns ever made, but you also have to realize that by the late 70’s, Westerns were looked at as box office kryptonite. Audiences had moved on from Westerns and went toward cop films and gangster movies. Eastwood himself hadn’t done a western since 1972, but this feels like it perfectly married the sensibilities of the American John Wayne westerns with the scenery and cinematography and Eastwood’s Italian spaghetti westerns with the insanity and the bloodshed. It’s an epic film that feels akin to RPGs are characters join and leave the party, spanning different times of war.

Reason number 4, there aren’t many people better at playing the anti-hero than Clint Eastwood. Here he plays Josey Wales, a farmer who comes back from ploughing the field to find his house on fire, his wife taken and his child killed. It’s a harrowing opening directed with quick, frenetic cuts that put you in the shoes of the confused and then beaten Wales. When a gang of rebels tells him they’re going to hunt the Red Legs, the pro-Union Kansas Jayhawkers responsible for his family’s deaths, Wales jumps at the chance to join them. His journey takes him all over the midwest as he dodges the Red Legs and bounty hunters in a bid to finally find peace. There’s a lot of humanity to the story and what starts as a simple revenge film evolves over time toward more of a found family, and that was really charming.

Reason number 3, this is specific to the 4K disc but it looks and sounds amazing. I was blown away from the very start with the picture quality on this one - for reference, I have a 4K projector and a 120” screen and I don’t think this movie has probably ever looked this good. The sound was booming as well, I actually had to turn my receiver down from where I normally watch movies because I was afraid my wife was going to tell me to turn it down and the Oscar nominated score by Jerry Fielding sounded really good. If you’re looking to watch this for the first time, I don’t know that it’s on any streaming services but even if it is, snag the disc - I got this for like $11 during one of the recent WB sales so it can be had for a pretty reasonable price. It’s also got a commentary by Richard Shickel and a few other featurettes that dive into the making of The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Reason number 2, there is an excellent scene in the film when Josey Wales rides to meet up with a Comanche chief named Ten Bears and it needs to be seen because it’s excellently written, extremely tense and ends in a really insightful way. I’ll give you the set up but I won’t tell you about the resolution. Essentially Josey Wales, or, The Grey Man, as the Comanche refer to him, has gained a reputation across the land, as has Ten Bears. Ten Bears men capture two of the folks from Josey’s group and he’s told that his tribe is going to come down the hill to murder them all the next day. Josey gets up at dawn and rides to meet up and, one against many, has a conversation with Ten Bears that could easily parallel to situations we see today. It’s a very well acted scene between Eastwood and Will Sampson and the scene plays out in a way that was surprising and poignant.certainly ends in a way I didn’t see coming. 

Reason number 1, the depiction of Native Americans in this film is said to have been groundbreaking at the time, and it’s easy to see why. Chief Dan George plays Lone Watie, a Cherokee veteran who starts as a companion and kind of a guide and ends up being integral to the story as he both guides Josey Wales and helps bring others who can help into the fold. I found out afterward that it’s because he wasn’t really a trained actor and was just asked to learn about his character and to tell stories, and it helped because the character felt earnest. He was also pretty funny and he brought levity when it was necessary. Another person named Little Moonlight is a part of the crew, played by Navajo Geraldine Keams, who also speaks most, if not all of her dialogue in Navajo, and I already mentioned Ten Bears, who isn’t in the movie long but in my opinion shares the most important and most entertaining scene.

If you’re into Clint Eastwood, Westerns, movies with an incredible amount of quotable lines or any of the other reasons I mentioned, give The Outlaw Josey Wales a spin. If you’ve seen it already, what did you think about it? And what’s your favorite western film? Let me know down below or email me at forcefivepodcast@gmail.com.