In what seems to be his swan song to the Western, Clint Eastwood plays a character who could be The Man With No Name 20 years on. An infamous gunslinger tamed by the love of a woman who has since died, he now farms pigs with his two children. Hatred of his new life, coupled with a need for money, impels him to ride out in search of a reward offered by a brothel, one of whose girls was cut up by two cowhands who got off with little more than a fine. The sadistic sheriff (Gene Hackman) who handed out the 'penalty' deals more summarily with bounty hunters, but all might still have been simple were it not for an event that makes Eastwood reach for both bottle and gun and turns him back into The Man With No Name for the last 15 minutes of the film. The film won a saddle full of Oscars.
|
