High Plains Drifter (1973)
★★★ — High Plains Drifter (1973)
High Plains Drifter was Clint Eastwood's second directorial effort, following Play Misty for Me (1971), and marks his first attempt to bring the mythic, morally ambiguous world of Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy onto American soil, on his own terms. Shot almost entirely on a purpose-built lakeside set at Mono Lake, California, the production was handled through Eastwood's own Malpaso company in partnership with Universal. The film arrived during a particularly fertile period for revisionist Westerns, sitting alongside McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid in a cycle that was actively dismantling the genre's romantic conventions. Leone himself reportedly had reservations about the film, feeling it borrowed too liberally from his own work, a charge Eastwood has always pushed back on.
Clint Eastwood rides again… but why are we supposed to root for this guy? Eastwood’s signature style is all over this: cool, moody, and steeped in that classic spaghetti-western vibe. The cinematography is striking, the tone is darkly surreal at times, and the score by Dee Barton is fantastic. It’s got style in spades. But man… the main character is straight-up reprehensible. He manipulates, intimidates, and yes, rapes, and the film seems to want us to see him as some kind of avenging angel. That’s hard to swallow, especially when his actions aren’t really confronted or condemned by the story. It’s an interesting, atmospheric western, no doubt, but it’s tough to get past how troubling the hero is. Admirable as a piece of 70s genre filmmaking, but hard to recommend without major caveats.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1973 | Watched: 2025-07-16
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Clint Eastwood: Mystic River (2003) · Million Dollar Baby (2004) · Unforgiven (1992)
More with Clint Eastwood: Million Dollar Baby (2004) · Hang 'em High (1968) · Unforgiven (1992) · A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More western: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) · Rio Bravo (1959) · Ride Lonesome (1959) · The Great Train Robbery (1903)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
