Pale Rider (Blu-ray)

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Much of "Pale Rider" is slow-moving, with Eastwood his usual deliberate, determined, laconic self. He generally lets his eyes and his flinty snarl do his talking. The parts in between the slow-going sections are well worth the wait, though, so, yeah, this is a film that any Western fan might enjoy. Besides, the scenery is gorgeous, with big panoramic shots worthy of a John Ford epic. Can't beat that.

Video:
The picture quality varies in this 2.40:1 ratio, BD50, VC-1 transfer. Sometimes the colors are bright and vivid; other times they look a tad faded. Sometimes the definition is sharp and precise; other times it's slightly soft and blurred. Sometimes the screen is perfectly clean, free of noise, flecks, or age; other times the screen shows a good deal of normal film grain. Yet one thing is consistent: the overall image is fairly dark, even in brightest daylight. In fact, the darkness occasionally hides faces, and indoor scenes are so dark, the filmmakers appear to have shot them entirely in natural light. In any case, most of what we see looks realistic, and the photography places the viewer well into milieu of the story.

Audio:
The closing credits say the sound is available in "Dolby Stereo where available." I assume what we have here is a 5.1 studio remix, available in English in either regular Dolby Digital or Dolby TrueHD. In TrueHD it's good but, not unexpectedly, a bit short of state-of-the-art. For instance, the audio engineers hardly use the surround channels until late in the picture, where they kick in from time to time with musical ambiance, the ricochet of bullets, and the occasional explosion. The front stereo spread works fine, though, gunshots ring with authority, and those explosions I alluded to make a mighty noise.

Extras:
There's very little in the way of extras on the disc. A "Pale Rider" and an "Unforgiven" theatrical trailer are about all there is. We do, however, get a generous twenty-eight scene selections; English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Thoughts:
In "Pale Rider" Eastwood clearly liked the idea of paying homage to a pair of cinema's greatest Westerns, "Shane" and "High Noon," and he liked playing the Avenging Spirit, the Angel of Death. For him, he makes it look easy. After all, who else would you want coming to your rescue than the Preacher Man With No Name? The problem is, after Eastwood replaced John Wayne in the 1960's/70's as the iconic Western hero, who's now going to replace Eastwood? He won't be around forever, and so far nobody's stepped up. We'll see.

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