Although "Ride The High Country" is a Western, it is really an interesting character study, in Western garb. If you get a chance, give it a look...I'd be interested in your reactions.
I won't promise, but if I trip over it, I'll keep an eye out for it.
While I don't like westerns per se (such clichés, manly men, savage Indians, stoic heroes...brainless women), there are exceptions, especially any of the movies that take the trouble to interrogate the genre.
However, here, I must say that I really liked Clint Eastwood's pair of westerns -
'The Outlaw Josey Wales' (Chief Dan George was a revelation, and what an intelligent, sympathetic perspective on the experience of native Indians), and
'Unforgiven'. Nothing in his previous career would have suggested that he was capable of subverting the genre that he had done so well out of with such intelligence and depth.
In those movies, I liked the recognition of nuance, awareness of history, multi-layered nature of plot, respectful acknowledgement of minorities, plus the fact that Eastwood himself was prepared to allow intelligent character actors to thrive while ceding the limelight to them, without throwing a fit of the sulks, indeed, that he welcomed the intelligence that actors such as Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris and above all, Gene Hackman brought to the roles he crafted for them.
I did like
'Once Upon A Time In The West' - a sort of epic, spaghetti western, and even liked the attempt at critical interrogation of founding myths that
'Heaven's Gate' represented (especially in its uncut version). While the movie was mercilessly minced, and I think greater heed could have been paid to the structure (it did teeter perilously close to self-indulgence at times), I salute the intelligent critical awareness that wished to tell this particular tale which was anything but heroic.
Oh, and I forgot to mention
'Lone Star' - a sort of modern and highly intelligent western - when listing favourite movies. Easily one of my favourite US movies of the past two decades.