Hang ‘Em High
(1968)
[DVD Info]

Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is a former lawman turned cattle farmer. One day, after buying a bunch of cattle from a man named Johanson, the man turns up dead. Nine men surround him after he crosses a river with his cattle and ask him wear he got them. When he gives them a wrong description they string him up on a tree. They steal his wallet and his saddle and then hang him. After they leave, a sheriff cuts him loose, telling him he has a right to a fair trial. Jed is then put in a wagon with other criminals and is taken into town. His story checks out and he’s released. The judge offers him a job as a deputy marshal so he can bring justice to the men to tried to kill him. He accidentally stumbles across and kills one of the men and another one turns himself in, giving the names and locations of the others. The closer he becomes to bring along his own justice he realizes that the town he protects is as unjust as the men who tried to kill him. Will he be able to bring those nine men to justice without becoming part of what he hates?

It’s hard to trust a man with a vendetta.
By criminals logic, it’s obviously smarter to let criminals go then to arrest them.
You can’t undo mistakes, but you can finish the job.
Everyone loves a good hanging.
It’s bad to bring a guy who’s crushing on you to the spot where you were raped without telling him.

"When you hang a man, you better look at his face." ~Jed Cooper.

Clint Eastwood doesn’t make a good lawman.
Ending? None for you!

In all…this wasn’t a very good movie. It was boring and too long. This guy was unjustly hung from a tree and has a brutal rope burn scar on his neck. He barely escapes with his life and he just doesn’t seem like he’s hell-bent on revenge. It’s more like it’s something to do. His whole love interest was just to fill out time. I like the fact that he totally belittled the fact that she’s still upset about being raped and her husband being killed. Wow…insensitive much? And after this long, boring movie that doesn’t seem to go anywhere except that he “brings justice” to seven of the nine men…it just ends! The judge tells him that he better not quit as a lawman or he’ll never find those last two guys and then he rides his horse around town. Riiiiiight. Even the final showdown was lame and anti-climatic.

Clint Eastwood really doesn’t make a good lawman. He’s better as the bitter man on the wrong side of the law with a personal vendetta. It’s just not as cool when he’s doing things by the book. One thing that’s good about him being a lawman though, is that he’s clean-shaven and Clint Eastwood is quite a looker with no facial hair. With cheesy over the top music, useless scenes that don’t make sense, sudden zooming, lighting matches on pants, whores, harmonicas, squinty eye close ups, public drunkenness, and extreme German Shepard snarl close up, the jury gives this flick:

(Bored)

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