The war ends in 1865. Fletcher tells his men to surrender at a Union army checkpoint. They do so, except for Wales who stays behind. It is a trap, and Fletcher's men are all gunned down by the Union soldiers except for Fletcher himself. Jamie (Sam Bottoms), an excitable gung-ho type, is seriously injured but escapes to pair up with Wales in the countryside.
Vernon accompanies Union soldiers in their various unsuccessful attempts to track down and ambush Wales. Wales kills countless bullying soldiers, along with several murderous bounty hunters and malevolent rapists. Because it is a movie, Wales gradually assembles an eccentric surrogate family, complete with grandpa (Chief Dan George), grandma (Paula Trueman), wife (Geraldine Keams), and daughter (Sondra Locke), though he eventually beds the comely daughter instead of the homely wife.
Wales and company hole out in Indian territory, where they easily negotiate peace with the local chief (Will Sampson) and build a homestead. But Union soldiers are a-comin', with predictable results.
Clint Eastwood has made many a Western. His big break came from the early sixties television series "Rawhide". Later that decade, he starred in a series of Italian Westerns directed by Sergio Leone, making him famous as the Man with No Name.
He was the tough guy, stone faced but not quite cold hearted, as he had sympathy for the underdog. Hang 'Em High, Two Mules for Sister Sara, and High Plains Drifter were further vehicles establishing Eastwood as the most commercially successful Western movie star since John Wayne.
The Outlaw Josey Wales was Eastwood's last until Pale Rider in 1985. The story was based on an obscure book by half-Cherokee poet Forrest Carter, a copy of which had been sent unsolicited to Eastwood. After a disagreement, Clint replaced Philip Kaufman as director during production.
How others will see it. The Outlaw Josey Wales was a box office triumph. It was ignored by film festivals of the day, who saw it as a bogus crowd pleaser, full of hammy acting save from the ever-laconic and tobacco spitting Eastwood.
But Eastwood has had the last laugh, not only because he has outlived most of the cast, but because the movie somehow entered the prestigious National Film Registry in 1996, along with far more deserving films such as Mildred Pierce, The Heiress, and To Be or Not to Be.
Today at imdb.com, the user vote total (73K) is impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the lofty user rating of 7.8 out of 10. Of course there are naysayers, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who lavish praise on our hero Clint Eastwood and his feel-good family western (only PG-rated despite two rapes, Sandra Locke's bare behind, and an enormous body count).
How I felt about it. Wikipedia calls the film a revisionist western, and deserved so. This is a movie where the Confederates, who enslaved blacks and traitorously started the Civil War, are heroes, even the insurgent gangs that terrorized border towns in Kansas and elsewhere. Union soldiers, who died by the tens of thousands to free slaves, stamp out treason, and establish law and order, are the bad guys.
It is interesting that while Indians are good guys here, especially ingratiating sidekick Chief Dan George, blacks are absent altogether. Because if you are going to make a pro-Southern film, don't antagonize your target audience by including blacks.
The biggest asset of The Outlaw Josey Wales is Bruce Surtees' cinematography. Unfortunately, the film looks much better than it sounds. The problems begin with Josey Wales character, who is actually a pushover unless you are a rapist or a Union soldier.