The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) - A deeply engaging and complex character portrayal

by Lee
(Sunnyvale, CA, USA)

...an army of one

Clint Eastwood (Josey) fills the screen with 'take no prisoners' action and suspense in this gritty 1976 western drama The Outlaw Josey Wales. Josey starts life as a peaceful farming man in Civil War era Missouri. Everything changes for him when Union soldiers burn his home and murder his family. Josie becomes ‘An army of one’ as the movie's trailer aptly states.


Clint Eastwood as Josey is a deeply engaging and complex character whose life is thrown into an abyss of murderous rage when all that matters is taken away from him. We follow this once peaceful man through seemingly unrelenting violence toward anyone who ends up on the wrong side of his gun. The expertise in both acting and directing are evident as Clint Eastwood brings dimension to Josey and treats him as a complete man with both flaws and glimmers of heart.


The divisive political and social sentiment of the time period is well portrayed through the script when Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman) shows how Americans viewed each other. “This Mr. Wales is a cold-blooded killer.” She continues, “He's from Missouri, where they're all known to be killers of innocent men, women and children.” The Outlaw Josey Wales may not be extremely historically accurate; however it is not a movie that pulls punches. The violence of a man's deep-seated anger and his terrible revenge driven murder spree is portrayed with both grace, and classic Eastwood style.


Josey is not a simple man, and Eastwood's portrayal can serve as an allegory for the limits of human tolerance for other's behavior. In times of political division, even the most peace loving members of a society can be pushed to take up arms toward (or against, as in this case) a cause. There is definite dividing line between The Farmer Josey Wales and The Outlaw. All people have their breaking point. Josey develops the opinion that when “...things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean.” He takes this idea and applies it to his newly violent life as he continues, “Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win.”


My favorite moments in The Outlaw Josey Wales include both action filled scenes as well as moments of contemplative insight on Josey's part. Clint throws some of his memorable lines in this western movie.

Josey, in a particularly deep moment states: “I ain't promising you nothing extra. I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another.”

In a suspense filled scene where Josey is confronted by a bounty hunter, he gives his assailant a warning before killing him. “Dyin' ain't much of a living...”


As a directorial achievement, The Outlaw Josey Wales is among Clint Eastwood's best movies. With a similarly desolate feeling to that evoked in Unforgiven, Eastwood manages to depict both the beauty of the western landscape and the ugliness of its inhabitants' conflicts. If you are looking for a movie that never lets up and never lets you down, I can highly recommend The Outlaw Josey Wales starring Clint Eastwood.