Nicely done and good entertainment. I like when a movie starts-up and gets right to the point. We are not disappointed here and quite frankly not surprised either. Cattle rustling was a serious crime along with stealing horses as life was hard and people who chose the easy (and wrong) way out were severely punished. This movie makes that point. We are also treated to a nice dose of comeuppance where the supposed good guys get a bad guys return on some faulty rash thinking. Clint is at his best in helping us believe what a ordinary decent person would do or not do. Westerns tell a unique stories of hard life that led to the creation of our towns, cities and laws we have today. The stories are without end and remind us of how anything worth having requires our participation which serves as part of the reward or return. It didn't take much money to live on but it took discipline and consistency to make a life for ones self. Also note that the many who chose to prey on others instead of working for their own could only be stopped with the threat of death or death itself. Hanging was the lesson at large to teach the population not to do certain things or this is how it would end. That's why kids, women and fathers/men attended these living lessons on how to behave or else for their educational value too. Good movie to snack on with a tasty drink. This Western goes down smooth

Hang 'Em High proves to be one Western too many for Clint Eastwood. After the success of the Dollars trilogy he jumps back into the genre with a movie which thoroughly disappoints. This is a slow, dull, quite tedious film. Not much interesting happens. Honestly not much of anything happens. Drama and excitement are in desperately short supply. The big action sequences you expect from such a film never arrive. The characters are not compelling, the story is paper-thin and the supposed climax is totally anticlimactic. Very hard to find anything good to say about this one.In this film Eastwood's character actually has a name. He's Jed Cooper and soon after we meet him Jed finds himself swinging from a tree with a rope around his neck. A posse, thinking him to be a cattle rustler and a murderer, hangs him. They do a rather lousy job of it. A federal Marshal shows up, cuts down the still very much alive Cooper and brings him before a judge. This judge likes to hang pretty much anyone brought before him but he realizes Cooper's innocence and actually makes Cooper a Marshal. And from there things go about as you would expect, Cooper hunting down the men who lynched him, seeking vengeance. Sounds like it could be interesting but it doesn't turn out that way. The fact the bad guys are such bumbling, bungling idiots doesn't help. Given another chance to kill Cooper they fail even more miserably than the first time. They really are quite pathetic. If you can't take the bad guys seriously it's near impossible for this type of movie to succeed. And that's the case here. The film's central conflict is a letdown. And there's nothing else to prop the film up. A tepid love story falls completely flat. The hanging scenes (and with this judge in town there are plenty of opportunities for hanging scenes) are interminable. Eastwood is reasonably decent in his role but no other performer really makes a mark. Some, most notably Ed Begley as the lead bad guy, miss the mark entirely. Getting through this film is really a chore. There's no suspense, the drama drains away all too quickly. This is not a good film. In fact it's quite bad. You might even call it ugly.

When Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is walking along minding his own business when he is stopped by a group of men who accuse him of cattle-rustling. Despite Cooper's protests of innocence, the men decide that he is guilty and sentence him to death by hanging (albeit a private and unsanctioned hanging). However, Cooper survives this hanging and once his innocence has been proved, Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle) makes Cooper a lawmen and tasks him with the job of bringing all the men back to him alive so that they can be brought to justice.Hang 'Em High is another in a long line of Eastwood westerns and to date this is probably the weakest offering that I've seen. The problem I found with this film is that is that the story just wasn't all that engaging. At close to 2 hours it's far too long and I just found that so many elements of the film seemed to be drawn out for no real reason (the scene involving a group of men being hung about halfway through the film is a case in point). It also wasn't particularly exciting or entertaining and Eastwood is saddled here with a character that has no real character - no one-liners or humorous moments. This all just made the film rather dull. Director Ted Post also showed a lot of close-ups of several cast members which may have been the 'in thing' and I suppose it was intended to create suspense and tension, but looking at it today it looks ridiculous and rather cheesy.Where this film does deserve some praise is in the way that the writers expose some of the flaws in the justice system. Cooper is also a man that finds that his heart is telling him to get revenge on the men that left him for dead, but finds his head and conscience is telling him that they should be brought to justice and let the justice system decide their fate. This is an interesting aspect to the story which sadly for me didn't quite get enough focus.What makes this film slightly more disappointing is the final showdown which lacked any sort of intensity and was very anti-climactic.Taking everything into account, Hang 'Em High is an underwhelming and slightly disappointing film that just isn't as compelling or entertaining as many of Eastwood's other westerns.

An understated, under-rated Clint Eastwood masterpiece. Probably overlooked among Eastwood's westerns because his character is so un- Eastwood-like. Rather than a vigilante, he is the anti-vigilante, out for a fairer form of justice. While Eastwood is still cool, aloof, tough, hard-bitten and unflappable, he also shows a sensitivity which was rare in his earlier movies (but which he shows a lot of in his 90s and 00s directing roles).Solid, fluid directing by Ted Post. The movie doesn't lose focus or drift for a second.As mentioned, Eastwood shows a sensitive side which was probably new to his fans. A great performance. Solid support from Pat Hingle and Inger Stevens.Definitely worth watching.