The Outlaw Josey Wales

The Outlaw Josey Wales, an early revisionist western, has been released in UHD format. Clint Eastwood both stars and directs. On a large screen the panoramic views typical of the genre are well served by the clarity of 4K resolution. Eastwood uses a lot of shadow in the film, often against bright backdrops. As a result the film, in places, greatly benefits from the high dynamic range that the UHD format provides. The film also comes with a remastered soundtrack. This is an improvement on the soundscape of previous home releases. As well as generally improving the sound quality it brings out more of the nuance in the character music such as when Jamie (Sam Bottoms) sings The Rose Of Alabama.

The disc has a few special features. Unfortunately there is not much to write home about. Some of them are bland and not really informative. One, An Outlaw And An Antihero, is somewhat misleading. Josey Wales is never really an antihero. He is a man who can't initially reconcile himself with the victorious Union side in the American Civil War. He has been a witness to their war crimes, things that by the standards of the day would be considered atrocities. The Union army brought in the Lieber Code in 1863 and the First Geneva Convention was in 1864. Wales has a strong moral compass: despite being very good at killing, at several points in the film he goes out of his way to avoid killing. Being pursued by evil men, war criminals, who are acting with legal authority does not make a character an antihero.

Maybe one reason that there is not much substance in the special features is that if there were then Eastwood's relationship with Sondra Locke, 14 years his junior, would have to come up. Talking about what happened to her and her career may paint some people in a bad light.

The look and feel of the disc and its packaging is consistent with the film. The menu system is simple and easy to use. One problem with it is that some of the in-movie UI elements can play badly with a Blu-ray player's UI. In my case pausing and unpausing has a problem. Pausing brings up the device's native progress bar; unpausing brings up the disc's progress bar. The disc then briefly plays and then repauses. I also ran into a problem where one of the special features played out into a black screen and did not return to the root menu.

Bland special features and a couple of technical glitches aside, this UHD release showcases one of Clint Eastwood's most important films. It's the point at which his directorial style really starts to come into its own.

Reviewed on: 28 Apr 2025