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Rating: A few days ago, he turned 80. A long period during which the American icon, from an unknown TV series titled Rawhide, reached the court of our own Sergio Leone, becoming one of the most famous western actors of all time. After the so-called "Dollars Trilogy" and other film appearances, Clint decided to step behind the camera, while still actively participating in several works as an actor. This is the case of "The Outlaw Josey Wales", one of his most well-known westerns, produced in 1976. This was the second western after the magnificent "High Plains Drifter," perhaps the first true film that consecrated Eastwood as a filmmaker.
The story unfolds in the Texas countryside, where Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) lives a peaceful life with his family. However, the day arrives when Northern guerrillas destroy his home and family, and Josey, now alone, decides to fight his own war, which is everyone's war, siding with the Confederates.
Josey Wales starts a solitary war against all those who, in the name of the American army, rape, kill, and get away with it. His story becomes an unyielding opposition to those who, through a barbaric act, ended the innocent lives of his family members. Day after day, he flees from his past, but also from those who want him dead. The army places a bounty on him, inviting hunters to try to capture the infamous Josey Wales. His name becomes legend, his story myth. The fundamental reason driving his soul is revenge. However, the revenge western ends up becoming a manhunt western. Josey Wales is continuously hunted, finding few people willing to help him along his path. He lives "on the road" like a modern fugitive, killing to avoid being killed.
All this until he decides to stop at a fort, right after making an "alliance" with the local tribes, in perhaps the movie's most representative scene. "Governments don't live together, people do".
Josey Wales' life may have returned to normal, and now he even feels emotions. However, he cannot escape a past that is still present, which he sees every day in the desolate Civil War.
A western that takes on a twilight character due to the constant presence of Josey's past/present, yet is also indissolubly linked to Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns for a persistent presence of violence and typically Leonian lines.
Josey Wales spits because he is alone. He spits because this world and its violence disgust him. He spits because he is still forced to fight...
"Honesty is in men".
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