Clint Eastwood/High Plains Drifter
Clint Eastwood will forever be lassoed to the Western genre, no matter how many biopics he makes. With that in mind, it would be undoubtedly poetic for Eastwood to end his career with a Western.
The last Western he made was Unforgiven, which, I admit, is the perfect closing statement. However, there is a way for Eastwood to cap his career off with a Western without tarnishing the perfect swan song that is Unforgiven: a post-apocalyptic remake of High Plains Drifter.
The post-apocalyptic genre rose from the ashes of the Western, a genre shot and left for dead in the 1970s. Like the Western, the post-apocalyptic genre satisfies the audience’s subconscious yearnings for simple living and total freedom; it often includes stark landscapes and homemade justice; it takes our plugged-in world, strips it naked and sends it out in shame. It’s the Western for the modern age–think The Walking Dead, Mad Max or The Rover.
In High Plains Drifter, Eastwood plays the titular drifter, who wanders across a town that needs the help of a killer; the drifter paints the town red, renames it “Hell” and becomes its guardian angel.
Adapting the film to a post-apocalyptic setting—which only requires a few aesthetic tweaks—would be a simple change to keep the film fresh and separate it from its storied ancestor. Eastwood’s much too old to play the title role, so a new squinty-eyed anti-hero would have to be cast–I’m thinking Tom Hardy or Jon Bernthal, both of which are as great as they are obvious choices.
And yes, Eastwood has already done a spiritual remake in Pale Rider, but that only proves how adaptable the core story is.
