Clint turned down the Judge's job offer and taken the law into his own hands. He could've hunted each of the bad guys down 1 by 1 over the course of the movie. It seems like there is only 5 minutes of Clint actually getting back at the guys...
shareApart from Reno and Miller, were they really bad though? They lynched Cooper because they mistook him for the murderer...
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"Apart from Reno and Miller, were they really bad though? They lynched Cooper because they mistook him for the murderer..."
They were bad. If you are going to do something like that( and nowadays, it's a crime) you better be 100% sure of it. Their instincts and intuition, except for Jenkins, was absolutely horrible. They all had the look of bad people, never mind whether they had a criminal past or not. Just that vicious, stern, judgemental, ruthless outlook itself makes one cringe. They didn't seem to feel sadness for the murdered 60 year old cattle owner, just vengefulness and anger toward Jed Cooper.
Rotten people all around. And they would have done this to someone else, had Cooper not recovered and gone after them.
Most of the film's value comes from its quite complex examination of frontier justice. There's a lot of depth, nuance, and thematic irony here, and those qualities are needed because despite some exciting scenes and Eastwood's presence, Hang 'Em High lacks the technical quality that Eastwood had enjoyed with Sergio Leone or that he would soon receive from Don Siegel.
shareRotten people all around. And they would have done this to someone else, had Cooper not recovered and gone after them.
(Spoilers)
It seemed like a strangely paced movie to me alright. By the time he catches up with the first baddie (the token really annoying "horrible" one who normally gets left till last, apart from the leader) a large chunk of the movie has gone by and I'm thinking "Get a move on Clint, you've got another eight to catch and only about an hour and a half to do it in!"
But then one conveniently hands himself in, a couple just disappear and he manages to deal with two at once at the end (if memory serves). It was like they set out to do an epic revenge movie, lost interest and decided to stick a romantic segment in, then hastily wrapped it up. The first hour or so was a GREAT western, it just went off the rails a bit after that.
Leyton Orient: by far the greatest team the world has ever seen.
Thank you. I just got done watching this for the first time and I didn't know what to make of it. It seem to start off great but then it lost something and me. Wasn't sure what to make of it until I came here. It could have been great and I thought it would be. At least Clint has a lot of westerns to pick from. I guess I'll move on to another one.
shareI know I'm six years late, but I just saw this for the first time, and I agree with everything you've said. It's like it shifts gears, and then it runs out of gas. I also liked the first half, but the third act drags and just doesn't work. Too many offscreen deaths.
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
I think people expect a great revenge western in the spirit of Clint Eastwood as 'the man with no name' and Dirty Harry.........and then they are disappointed when it's not.
In reality, this is a film that tries to be more than that. It's a pretty smart script, and Pat Hingle is really good in it.
Yea, definitely agree with you. The way it stand now it is a smarter script than just some simple "revenge" flick and I appreciate the grey area the film explores. Having some of the lynch mob go on the lam, some consumed by guilt and others fight to the death was a rather realistic depiction of people in my opinion especially considering they were a diverse posse and not a gang. So many Western baddies can be simplistic drones serving no purpose other than gun fodder; it was a nice touch to flesh out a majority of them and give them all different backstories and personalities.
Had Clint escaped, hunted down all those lynchers one-by-one and gotten his own personal revenge, he would have just ended up on the gallows himself. Now I'm not saying this would have been a terrible ending either; it does actually have a nice message of paying for your sins even if you think they are justified. I just liked the different approach of this film and couldn't imagine it changed (aside from removing the television "breaks" and feel from it, haha).
I'm glad you, Tiger, and Mississippi, posted on here, because I was very disappointed with the beavis and butthead types who wanted another stupid insane revenge movie. This was much more thought provoking, and had the type of credibility of character we see in movies like Ox Bow, Jungle Fighters, Southern Comfort, Paths of Glory, etc.
Even if there weren't a million of the total dweeb "revenge at any costs, killing anyone who gets in the way" movies, those would still be poor movies. The fact that we have so many people loving those movies shows that we still have too many people with lynch mob mentality, and that's bizarre in a day and age when there are plenty of movies like this that show lynch mob mentality for what it is.
It's Eastwood's best western, by far.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time