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Rating: Q=7, P=4 / Can't Get Enough
Scale 1=3, Scale 2=4, Scale 3=3, Scale 4=1
Western, Good vs. Evil, Masculinity, Redemption, Myth
It is amazingly difficult to write such a simple narrative about such familiar issues and characters. Clint Eastwood's elegy to the western is moving, disturbing, and intricate. I found myself intrigued, as I usually am, with the complex male characters who struggle with reputation. Reputation is everything to men in the western genre. What does it mean to be true to yourself? And what if your true nature is cold-hearted and ruthless? Better to ride out into the storm with your guns blazing and the folks telling your story for decades to come than to have your image kicked and bloodied in a jail cell. Far worse to be a living sham than a dead legend. As the late Roger Ebert wrote in his spot on review, "deserve has everything to do with it."
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