Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw
Josey Wales would appear to
be Daly’s main influence here,
along with John Hillcoat’s Aus-
tralian ‘Meat Pie’ western The
Proposition. Both movies fea-
ture criminals forced to hunt
down men they once considered
friends. The soldier returning
home to find his people con-
sider him a traitor is reminis-
cent of First Blood, and when
Feeney’s face is pushed into
the earth by a policeman’s boot
and becomes caked in mud, it’s
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 51
impossible not to think of Stal-
lone’s John Rambo.
Movies that deal with English
colonialism tend to present a
simplistic, morally black and
white take, with rugged noble
natives battling dastardly Ox-
bridge educated fops. In Fox’s
Pope, Black 47 has its clichéd
fop, but its natives are far from
noble, forced by their dire situa-
tion to betray their own people
and culture for a bowl of soup.
Ironically, the closest the film
has to a noble figure is a young
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