Pale Rider - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Pale Rider



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:

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Movie
As I mentioned in my The Outlaw Josey Wales review, the 1980s was pretty much the death rattle for the blockbuster western. The 1970s acted as the very last of the “greats”, with the mid 80s and early 90s finishing things off with a few good ones. Sadly, like all things in life, the western was fading from the public eye and audiences wanted something different. We were in the era of Science fiction and action movies (and action movies were going gangbusters in the 80s) but Clint Eastwood decided to take another stab at the genre. Ironically, The Outlaw Josey Wales had been his last effort roughly a decade prior, so it was a big thing for Eastwood fans in the day as they saw him returning to his roots, so to speak. While Pale Rider had some notorious budget problems, and definitely ran on cruise control vs. some of Eastwood’s prior films, but still had enough old fashioned western spark to keep things interesting.

While not really being a supernatural film, Pale Rider kind of winks and nods at the camera, as the mysterious “Preacher” (played by Eastwood himself) seems to miraculously appear on the doorstep of a poor gold miner’s claim by the prayer of a young girl named Megan Wheeler (Sydney Penny). It seems that an entire mining camp filled with everyday panhandlers is under attack from a rich land baron named Coy Lahood (Richard Dysart) who wants their claims for his own strip mining plans. Just as the poor folks are ready to pack up and let their claim go to Lahood, the tall, dark and handsome Preacher walks into town, beats up a couple of Lahood’s goons, and then takes the panhandlers under his proverbial wing.

Furious at what’s going on, Lahood decides to call on his ace in the hole. A corrupt federal Marshall named Stockburn (the legendary John Russell) and his hired guns who will “enforce the law” for whomever pays them the most. Now it’s up to the Preacher to shed the remnants of his holy calling, and go back to a time when he was just as bad as Stockburn and Lahood rolled together. Even if it means losing his eternal soul in the process.

Pale Rider is a fun jaunt, but one that is plagued by quite a few problems. Eastwood was a legend in the western community, having helped form it along with John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and John Russell himself over the last few decades. But the studios, actors, and scriptwriters had changed a good bit. The audience was looking for something new, and the script writers weren’t from the same generation of writers in previous years. And those changes make a noticeable change to Pale Rider. The dialog is filled with much more modern day vernacular, with tones and “vibes” that feel much more modern than say The Outlaw Josey Wales. Also, I’m not sure what was going on, but Eastwood seemed to regress in his skills as a director. The man has put out some amazing movies, so it’s a bit strange to see action sequences that look more like the action sequences of Arnold or Sly Stallone, or cuts in the video that are way too tight, or out of focus. You can actually see that with the darkness levels, that seem to be either spot on, or else way too dark at times.

For all of those faults, Pale Rider is still a fun movie with a lot of good going for it. Eastwood does a great job playing with the obvious trope that the Preacher is something more than he’s made out to be in the beginning. It’s almost a “we know that the audience knows, that they know, that we know, that they knew the entire time” type of scenario as the prolific director leads us all by the nose to the ending battle where the nameless Preacher has to face his own demons (which turn out to be some of the miner’s demons as well).

The casting is a mixed back, with people like Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress and Sydney Penning feeling out of place, while others like John Russell are pure western magic. I did get a chuckle out of 19 year old Chris Penn (Sean Penn’s younger brother) playing the douche bag son of Lahood. But at the end of the day, the film manages to be a high point in the 1980s western world (only to be eclipsed by his 1992 film Unforgiven, which is tied with The Outlaw Josey Wales as the best western of the latter end of the 20th century).




Rating:

Rated R by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

Once more, I don’t think Warner has stated any details about the master used for this one, nor whether it got the 8K scan treatment that Dirty Harry had. But at the end of the day all that matters is that we have a great looking image right here in 2160p. Said film shares a lot of similarities to Josey Wales, using the same cinematographer, and having a decidedly similar color palatte at times. That being said, this image also has some issues with the darkness being too dark and murky (this is not a problem with the encode. This has been an issue with how Eastwood filmed the flick ever since it was introduced), and of course a more blue tinge to the mountain miners homes. Overall the detail levels are absolutely absurd, showing stunning clarity and a fine grain structure that absolutely blows the 2008 Blu-ray out of the water. There’s no obvious compression issues, and except for those blacks being a bit too black, and some soft spots, this is an incredible upgrade to the 1080p disc.







Audio:

Just like The Outlaw Josey Wales and Dirty Harry, Pale Rider sports dual English audio mixes, with a 2.0 DTS-HD MA lossless original theatrical mix, and a newly minted Dolby Atmos track that seems to borrow heavily from the 5.1 home video mix we’ve had for years. Surprisingly, the 2.0 track isn’t as different in sound from the Atmos mix as the previous two films. Instead the Atmos mix simply opens up the track a good bit, but keeps the same level matching abilities, as well as the rich bass response that has been baked into the 2.0 mix. But, don’t that that as the Atmos track being a slightly modified 2.0 track. It’s still got some serious benefits to the surround and LFE usage, with the majority of any overhead usage going to the score and a few echoes in the mountain air. All in all, a superb audio experience, and a huge upgrade over the 2008 Blu-rays mediocre TrueHD track.







Extras:

• NEW! The Diary of Sydney Penny: Lessons From the Set
• NEW! Painting the Preacher: The Cinematography of Pale Rider
• KINDA NEW! Reinventing Westerns
• Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story
• The Eastwood Factor

Final Score: ​

Pale Rider isn’t perfect, but it’s still a fun 1980s western with Clint Eastwood having a ball playing the mysterious tough as nails preacher. And it doesn’t hurt that Warner Bro’s 4K UHD disc is very impressive in both the audio and video front. Extras are a tad thinner than The Outlaw Josey Wales, but enough new material is in there to have fun digging through it all. It may not be a “buy it you fools!” recommendation, but it’s still worth a watch if you’re an Eastwood fan.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Sydney Penny, Chris Penn, John Russell
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Written by: Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English DTS-HD MA 2.0 (Original Audio), French, Spanish DD 2.0
Subtitles: French, Spanish, English SDH
Studio: Warner Bros
Rated: R
Runtime: 115 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: April 29th, 2025

Recommendation: Solid Watch