![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/o/outlawjoseywales.jpg)
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Clint Eastwood's 1976 epic western tells the story of Josey Wales, a Southern farmer who loses his family to Northern marauders during the Civil War and, with nothing left in his life, joins a Confederate infantry so he can kill some Union bluecoats. When the war ends, Wales' infantry surrenders to the North, but Wales instead strikes out on his own, heading West with a Federal posse on his tail. The Outlaw Josey Wales may seem to run a bit long (almost three hours), but it's one of the better episodic westerns out there, focusing less on plot and more on Wales' journey and the people he encounters on his way. Two of his traveling companions — a genteel Indian chief (Chief Dan George) and a wayward squaw (Geraldine Keams) — play well against Eastwood's laconic gunslinger icon, and help support Wales' ultimately humanistic theme — sentiments that would reappear many years later in another lengthy western, Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves. Also starring Sandra Locke, John Vernon, Paula Trueman, and Will Sampson. Good transfer from a near-pristine source print, new DD 5.1 mix, gallery of trailers from 12 Warner films, textual supplements.
—JJB
