High Plains Drifter

After starring in a few of Sergio Leone's more famous Spaghetti westerns, Eastwood picks up the director's reins as well as those of the leading part in a really quite extraordinary gothic western.

Haunted by the guilty knowledge that they stood by and did nothing while their sheriff was horsewhipped to death and fearing the imminent release of his three killers, the citizens of Lago decide to offer Eastwood, the enigmatic 'Man with No Name', anything he wishes in payment for his protection from the murderous gangs' return.

Eastwood's consequent exploitation of the townsfolk is outrageous but somehow strangely satisfying and provides a great deal of the film's wry humour. Indeed, High Plains Drifter takes almost sadistic pleasure in the humiliating treatments meted out to Lago's more unpleasant inhabitants as the thread of the moral lesson of this particular Western unwinds, seemingly as a pointed (but still wickedly funny) condemnation of their apathy and cowardice. As the gunfighter; Eastwood is a joy, as capable of razor sharp one-line ripostes and blunt witticisms as he is of twirling his six-shooter like only cowboys know how.

Slightly surreal in places, High Plains Drifter is perhaps one of the more off-beat, and as result, fascinating post-spaghetti American Westerns. As a tale of revenge, it is carried along by a powerful eerieness and an undercurrent of mordant dark humour to what is realty a pretty unusual climax.

Review by Iain Harral
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95