The Outlaw Josey Wales Family Review

Missouri farmer Josey Wales joins a Confederate guerrilla unit and winds up on the run from the Union soldiers who murdered his family.Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) makes his way west after the Civil War, determined to live a useful and helpful life. He joins up with a group of settlers who need the protection that a man as tough and experienced as he is can provide. Unfortunately, the past has a way of catching up with you, and Josey is a wanted man.—Murray Chapman <[email protected]>Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) is a Southerner whose entire family were killed by a sadistic Union officer. He joins a band of guerrilla fighters who manage to avoid being captured. After the end of the war, they refuse to surrender, but their leader, Fletcher (John Vernon), negotiates a surrender allowing his men amnesty. Josey, however, refuses to join them. After his men arrive, they're executed. But when they learn that Josey is still out there, they order him hunted down and the man they send to get him is the man who killed his family. He eventually runs into a group of settlers and helps them get settled and negotiates a peaceful co-existence with the Indians. But he has a price on his head, and every bounty hunter is out to get it.—[email protected] Wales (Clint Eastwood) is a peaceful farmer in the days near the end of the Civil War. After his house is burned and his family murdered, he hardens into a human bullet, dedicated to destroying the renegades who took his "life". He joins a band of unreconstructed rebel guerilla fighters who continue to fight the Union, even after the official surrender of the Confederacy, an action which makes them, legally, outlaws. Josey is driven by vengeance, but after a while, that's not enough. Back before his own personal Holocaust, he had been a builder, of home, family, farm, and life. And no matter how much ice he's wrapped himself in, down inside there's still the soul of a living man. While Wales exists, he's pulled by this hidden yearning to live. Each day offers him chances to remember, to assuage his yearning, to begin again. And the movie shows us how Josey Wales, a mere seeker of vengeance, learns to live again, rededicated to the values he chose so long ago.—John Withrow <[email protected]>