High Plains Drifter (1973)

There's a moment in High Plains Drifter where you sit back and think: are we actually supposed to be cheering for this bloke? Clint Eastwood rides into a dusty, desperate town, and within the first twenty minutes he has intimidated, manipulated, and committed a rape on screen. The film doesn't flinch. It doesn't apologise. And more troublingly, it doesn't seem particularly bothered about confronting any of it. That tension sat with me for the entire runtime, and it hasn't really let go since.

Which is a shame, because as a piece of pure genre filmmaking, there's a lot to admire here. Eastwood, directing as well as starring, brings the cool, laconic menace he'd been honing ever since his days with Leone. If you've seen my reviews of A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or For a Few Dollars More, you'll know I've got a lot of time for that particular strain of mythic, sun-baked cool. And stylistically, High Plains Drifter absolutely delivers. The landscapes are gorgeous and alienating in equal measure. The tone drifts into something almost supernatural, something genuinely strange and dreamlike, and that surreal quality gives the film an atmosphere that sets it apart from straightforward genre entries of the era.

Dee Barton's score deserves a special mention too. It's eerie and propulsive and perfectly calibrated to keep you slightly on edge throughout. It's the kind of score that does a lot of heavy lifting, and it earns every bit of the credit.

But here's the thing. Style only carries you so far when the moral framework underneath it is this murky. The Stranger, as Eastwood's character is known, is positioned by the film as some sort of avenging phantom, a dark guardian angel descending on a town that deserves whatever it gets. And maybe that reading works, up to a point. There's something genuinely interesting in the idea of a Western hero who is not noble, not clean, not someone to be emulated. Eastwood would later explore that territory far more rigorously in Unforgiven, a film that actually interrogates the violence it depicts rather than simply wallowing in it.

That's the comparison that keeps nagging at me. Unforgiven understands that showing us a brutal man doing brutal things requires the story to reckon with it. High Plains Drifter doesn't seem particularly interested in reckoning. The rape is presented almost as a character quirk. The intimidation and manipulation are framed as swagger. The town suffers, and we're meant to feel they had it coming. Maybe some of them did. But the film never makes that case with any real clarity or moral weight.

I don't think a film needs a virtuous protagonist to work. Some of my favourite Westerns are populated entirely by rogues and scoundrels. But there's a difference between a film that knowingly places a reprehensible figure at its centre and examines that, and a film that seems largely unaware of how troubling its own hero is. High Plains Drifter too often feels like the latter.

So where does that leave me? Three stars feels about right. I wouldn't tell you to skip it, because it genuinely is atmospheric and striking and there are sequences that lodge themselves in your memory. As a snapshot of early-70s genre filmmaking, it has real value. But I'd go in with your eyes open, and I'd follow it up with Unforgiven if you want to see Eastwood ask the harder questions this film dodges.

Admirable, troubling, and worth watching once. Just don't expect to feel great about it.

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)