I just watched this movie the other day and I started to think, instead of going through all the trouble the townsfolk went through, why didn't Clint Eastwood just snipe the 3 bandits? I realize that the modern sniper rifle hadn't been invented yet, Barret .50, Winchester .30-06, etc, but wouldn't it have been easier to just shoot the bandits from long range? Even back then you could reliably reach out and touch someone from 500+ yards. Certainly not the 1.5 miles away that a trained sniper can hit from today, but far enough. I hate painting, BTW. I'd have told him to fcuk off and grabbed my Kar-98. Perhaps the time frame is a little too early for that weapon, but how about a .30-30 Winchester? A Whitworth? It simply seems an enormous waste of time to paint a town and hire a specialist for what should have been a short, long distance encounter.
just me2013-09-01T01:56:42Z
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it was a movie if the bad guys die in the first 5 minutes it makes a very short movie * nobody will pay to see a movie that short
I is to add to the drama, and threat of the bad guys.
It would be too easy and to short of movie time to kill them.
Movies rarely make sense. I.E. in Lethal Weapon Mel Gibson showed extreme marksmanship at a police target. But he had a hard time shooting at bad guys in a helicopter.
Another intreging movie Shooter proves this. Mark Wahlberg can hit a can of stew from over a mile away. But as precision trained USMC sniper he could not hit the helicopter pilot hundreds of feet away from him. I know the stew can did not shot back, and did not kill his spotter. But to miss a much bigger target a fraction of the distance makes zero sense..
He played the spirit of Marshal Jim Duncan. The townspeople he swore to protect stood by and watched him die. The few townspeople who tried to help him, but were unable to, or who showed outrage (Mrs. Belding and Mordecai for example) were spared his wrath. The rest of the town, he gained revenge by allowing their businesses to be destroyed and allowing Stacey Bridges to beat up and murder them, before seeking justice. And for the record, if you had attempted to speak that way to Clint Eastwood, you would not have made it to the end of the scene.
theres some kind of weird connection to the former sheriff who was whipped to death in front od all the townspeople. like clint is supposed to be his brother or some kind of supernatural reincarnation of him and the painting of the town, the getting free stuff from them, all of that stuff is like revenge on the townspeople. like they didn't want to get their hands dirty in the previous killing so they have to now this time around. its a weird movie.
edit Eastwood reflected on the film's meaning, indicating "it's just an allegory...a speculation on what happens when they go ahead and kill the sheriff and somebody comes back and calls the town's conscience to bear. There's always retribution for your deeds."[10]
its kind of like clint is karma coming back to give them retribution.