Still not forgiven - Unforgiven

I will keep this review short and simple. Unforgiven lives up to its name as I have still not forgiven it. Richard Harris portrays one of the weakest characters I have ever seen in a film. Despite being listed as a star of the film, he barely features. He arrives in town, acts rather stereotypically English, gets beaten up for said actions and leaves. The end. Gene Hackman is laughable as Little Bill, with a name that makes him sound like an Indian war chief than the hardened Sheriff that he is supposed to be. The way in which he plays his character is like a detective in Murder She Wrote...only with less life and even worse acting. When the prostitute gets her face cut up I half expected Angela Lansbury to burst in with a piece of evidence linking the saloon owner to the crime. 'Bill; I think I know who did this, but I need your help to prove it...' It would have been more entertaining certainly. This brings me neatly to Clint. Oh where did you go wrong.

One minute you're a mysterious preacher in Pale Rider and then you are a cardiac waiting to happen like an extra out of Dads Army who keeps falling off his horse... The only person who brings some redemption to this film is Morgan Freeman who, tragically is killed by the producers before he can make a true impact on the film, for being mildly entertaining. The question really, is just how much worse could this film be? With its all star pantomime cast, it could be tricky to pull off, though no doubt the producers could still nick a few coins from all our pockets. If you want a good classic western, pick up Appaloosa or Pale Rider. These are far more entertaining and do not stereotype the Englishman as a t**t.

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Overlong Unfocused Anti-Western - Unforgiven

It's interesting that when UNFORGIVEN was released every review show that showed an excerpt would would always show the same clip - the climax where Clint Eastwood's grizzled anti-hero walks in to the saloon and informs Gene Hackman " I've killed everything that's walked and crawled and now i've come to kill you little Bill " . This hooks the audience in to thinking they're going to be watching one of these old school Westerns where convention dictates if you want to survive then you've got to be quick on the draw. This is entirely misleading because UNFORGIVEN is very much an anti-western , something of an antidote to the syrupy feel-good DANCES WITH WOLVES which kick started a mini boom of the Western genre. Both films are at a polar opposite in most ways but share a common ground in that they're both films that won the Oscar for best pictures. They also share the common ground that they're overlong

One wonders how well it would have been received during " The New Hollywood " era ? There wouldn't have been much need to recast . You could still have Eastwood , Hackman and Harris play the same characters. One can speculate the critics wouldn't have held it in too high regard because there wasn't enough violent action as seen in the likes of HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER . David Webb Peoples screenplay is well over long by about an hour and is populated by characters that don't really drive the plot forward . Take for example the character of English Bob superbly played by Richard Harris . He arrives in town is beaten up by Little Bob , who arrests and taunts him in the town jailhouse and is then run out of town . It's an acting tour de force by both Harris and Hackman but what has this to do with anything except to perhaps point out it's July the fourth ? It's a very loose screenplay which puzzles me why it was so rewarded by that year's award shows

I can see what UNFORGIVEN is trying to do . The title alone points out the subtext - it's a story of one man's redemption . The problem is that the story for some perplexing reason introduces so many characters that it looses focus on the person and clogs up the story unnecessarily . These characters are cast very well and this saves the film from its most obvious fault in that it's an overlong film lacking a central narrative drive . You don't agree ? Imagine if Kevin Costner as Bill Munney , Eddie Murphy as Ned Long , Hugh Grant as English Bob and Jason Priestley as The Schofield Kid . Different film now isn't it ?

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A Great, Great Film - Unforgiven

To say that this is the best western ever made, or to say that it's Clint Eastwood's best film, would be wrong. Why? Because such droll understatement would be woefully misleading. This film isn't just those merely those things. Unforgiven ranks as one of the greatest films of all time. Period. No delimiters or qualifiers apply. And what follows is my view of this film's place in Hollywood history.

When John Wayne died in 1979 it was emblematic of the state of the western genre in Hollywood. In fact, Wayne's last film, The Shootist, dwelt on exactly that, and indeed that was what The Shootist was all about: the end of the wild west, the end of westerns in Hollywood, and, of course, the impending demise of John Wayne. Hey, to say these things --to make these statements-- is precisely why they ever took the time and the bother to make The Shootist. So then when the Duke really did die, the keys to Hollywood's westerns kingdom were handed off to Clint Eastwood, a bequeath almost by default. Through the 70s Wayne and Eastwood were just about the only ones left making westerns, and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), his then most recent effort, was arguably Eastwood's best film to date. But Clint deserved receiving those keys, because he had earned them. Clint patiently waited nine years to release his next western, Pale Rider, a homage to the western classic, Shane. In 1985 the general consensus was that Pale Rider was Clint Eastwood's finest film, his defining masterpiece.

But, as it turned out, Clint wasn't done. Seven years later, in 1992, he released what is now said to be his last western, Unforgiven. And with Unforgiven Clint hits all the classic western themes. I won't belabor retelling the story, because that's been done very well elsewhere in other comments. Nor will I dwell too much on the myriad layering of the characters. I will say that in watching and re-watching and re-watching numerous more times it became quite clear to me that Unforgiven was Clint's labor of love. It's the little things, subtleties, that reveal that truth. Things like the classic cowboy lines that roll off the character's tongues, without a second thought, but which reach deep and stay with you. Too many of those to list, but just read all the other reviews on this site, where they are recounted nicely.

One striking thing is the implicit irony that the characters, as ostensibly depicted, are to a one exactly opposite of their true nature, or of how they themselves want to be. The Schofield Kid, blustering braggadocio notwithstanding, is no killer. "I ain't like you Will," a chastened Kid says as he departs. And Little Bill Daggett remonstratively represents law, order, and justice, the supposed peace officer keeping the peace, is in truth corrupt and sadistically violent, unable to rise above his own vicious lawlessness. English Bob, the erstwhile cosmopolitan gunslinger, is a fraud and a coward to boot. And William Munney keeps saying he's a changed man, that he "ain't like that anymore." But, oh yeah, he is. The only honest character, the only compassionate character, is Ned Logan. He's the only one who kills no one, because of all of them, he really isn't like that, and yet he is the only one of the hired killers to get killed and to suffer the consequences of being a supposed killer.

To tell this story that plumbs the depths of human depravity, telling it convincingly, exploring various relative degrees of the human character, holding the requisite feet to the fire, and doing it all tightly in 131 minutes, Clint assembled great cast to work with: Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, and Richard Harris. All are marvelous. The film is a masterpiece.

Is Unforgiven to Eastwood as The Shootist was to Wayne, i.e., his own swan song of sorts? Well, certainly Clint, unlike John Wayne, wasn't dying, but the fact is Clint has never made another western. It appears that he has said all he has to say in that genre, and is finished with it.

And to the critic poseur who suggests that Dances With Wolves was a slightly better western, puh-leeeeze. Kevin Costner can't carry Clint Eastwood's jock strap, literally or figuratively. At least couldn't back then, at that point in his career. All too often, and certainly in Dances With Wolves, Costner's main attribute is his gargantuan --yet wholly unwarranted-- ego, and a self-absorption that runs amok, chewing scenery and stepping all over everybody else. And Costner's dime store cultural anthropology, while earnest, is laughable. The combination of Costner being Costner, a corn pone and contrived story, and the 4 hour length of the movie is a definite mind number. Dances With Wolves's real value is as a sleep aid. None of which is to say that Kevin Costner did not possess the capacity to make and leave an indelible mark on Hollywood's westerns. He did, and he did. But it wasn't with Dances With Wolves that it happened. In 1993 Costner's career took a fortuitous turn when he worked with Eastwood in the contemporary western, A Perfect World. There Costner learned and showed an ability to sublimate himself into a role, and to keep his egocentric tendencies in check. Immediately following that experience Costner released Wyatt Earp, a better film and a better western than Dances With Wolves. Then, in 2003, Costner, working with Robert Duval, made Open Range, arguably Costner's best work to date, and certainly the best western made since Unforgiven.

We can all hope that Clint has more westerns in him. If he doesn't, the keys he inherited from John Wayne appear destined for Kevin Costner. Again, by default.

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Video Meliora Proboque, Deteriora Sequor - Unforgiven

Contains Spoilers

Who would have thought it? During the eighties, when the cinematic Western was at its lowest ebb, I doubt if anyone could have predicted not only that two of the best films of the early nineties would be Westerns but also that both would go on to win 'Best Picture' at the Academy Awards, something that only one film from this genre had done previously. Yet that is exactly what happened. First came Kevin Costner's 'Dances With Wolves', then Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven'. In both cases the star also acted as director. In Eastwood's case he was returning to the genre in which he first made his name; this was his first Western since 'Pale Rider' eight years earlier, which in turn was his first since 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' eight years before that.

In 'Unforgiven', Eastwood plays a former gunfighter and robber named William Munny. (Pronounced 'Money'; there seems to be a tradition in Westerns of giving characters surnames which suggest they are for hire. There is Charlton Heston's Will Penny, and in 'Hannie Caulder' Robert Culp plays a hired gunman named Price). In his younger days, Munny was a hardened criminal, but he abandoned his life of crime when he married and settled down to life as a farmer. At the beginning of the film he is a widower, trying to raise two young children on his own. He is tempted to return to his former life, however, when he hears of a bounty of a thousand dollars which a group of prostitutes have placed on the heads of two drunken cowboys who badly injured one of their number by cutting her face with a knife. Abandoning his children to fend for themselves, Munny sets off to try and claim the money. He recruits a former associate, Ned Logan, and they are joined in their quest by a young man who calls himself the Schofield Kid and who is eager to make a name for himself as a gunfighter. They are not, however, the only men in search of the reward; an eccentric Englishman named English Bob, who has won himself an undeserved reputation as a Western hero, is also trying to track the cowboys down.

The film reminded me of another Western, Michael Winner's 'Lawman' from the early seventies. That film has at its centre a sheriff whose inflexible determination to uphold the letter of the law at all costs leads to tragic consequences. 'Unforgiven' approaches the question of law enforcement from a slightly different angle. A key role is played by Gene Hackman's sheriff, Bill Daggett. Unlike that of Burt Lancaster's character in 'Lawman', Daggett's approach to the law is arbitrary and inconsistent. He can at times uphold the law with savage zeal. He is determined to protect the two cowboys from vigilantism, but in doing so, he transgresses the law himself, dealing out a brutal kicking to English Bob and an even more brutal flogging to Ned which results in the latter's death. Moreover, Daggett has himself created the need for vigilante justice by denying the full protection of the law to the injured prostitute. (The only punishment imposed upon the cowboys is an order to pay compensation to the woman's pimp for the loss of her economic value to him).

There is, in fact, no character in the film who is entirely sympathetic. Munny starts the film as a reformed character, but slips back into his old ways when he is tempted by the prospect of money. He becomes, to borrow the title of another Eastwood Western, a man prepared to kill for a fistful of dollars. The lack of an easily identifiable hero is a common feature of modern 'revisionist' Westerns. Unlike some such Westerns, however, (Sam Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch' is a good example), 'Unforgiven' does not lack a moral centre. The Schofield Kid and English Bob have both been seduced by the dubious mythology of the West. The Kid, as his nickname suggests, is an inexperienced young man, but would like others to see him as a hardened and ruthless killer because he regards killing as something glamorous. Bob takes the credit for acts of violence which are wrongly attributed to him but which in reality he would be too cowardly to commit. Munny, for all his faults, can see Western mythology for what it is. Even when he is setting out to kill for money, he remains uncomfortably aware that "to kill a man, to take all he has and all he's ever gonna have" is a desperately serious business. In Ovid's phrase quoted in the title, he sees the better path, and approves, but follows the worse.

The first half of the film can be slow-moving, but the second half is gripping, as the death of his friend Ned leads Munny to seek a bloody revenge. As with many Westerns, there are some attractive shots of the local scenery (the film is ostensibly set in Wyoming, but was actually shot in Canada), but the overall tone is a dark, claustrophobic one in keeping with the film's theme. Many scenes are set in gloomy interiors, whether bars, brothels or ranch-houses. One of the villains is actually shot dead in an outside lavatory.

Of the two great Westerns of the early nineties, I would, marginally, prefer 'Dances with Wolves', which to my mind has a greater epic sweep, but by any other standard 'Unforgiven' is a very fine movie indeed, wonderfully acted, especially by Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Eastwood himself. (Freeman's role is a rare example of a black actor taking a leading role in a Western). It also asks some searching questions about the nature of law and justice, revenge and the roots of violence. It is interesting that Eastwood has not made any films in the Western genre since this one; perhaps he feels that it has set a standard that cannot be surpassed. 9/10

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A Potpourri of Vestiges Review: Truly Unforgettable - Unforgiven

Unforgiven is Clint Eastwood's tribute to his mentors, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. Regarded by many as the last true Western, Unforgiven is truly unforgettable. Though, it being the last true Western is subject to qualification, but it definitely consummates the genre. In fact, it will easily make it to the top 10 of the decorated genre, a genre illuminated by greats like Ford, Wayne, Leone, Peckinpah, and Eastwood himself.

The movie not only revived Eastwood's career as an actor, but also certified his directorial prowess. Unforgiven doesn't embody righteousness, but projects domination, based on ruthless opportunism. It is a clash of egos, a battle of icons in Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood, each ubiquitously acclaimed for his idiosyncratic style and delivery.

The two scenes that they share in the movie are exact antithesis of each other, giving them a chance to display their protean skills. The first encounter between William Munny (Eastwood) and Little Bill (Hackman), portrays Munny at his most vulnerable, pitted against a brutally dominant and unforgiving Bill. The second encounter is a completely different affair, with Munny calling the shots, against a helpless Bill.

The other scenes are equally brilliant, especially the one between English Bob (Richard Harris) and Little bill. The entire cast has performed really well, with a special mention of Morgan Freeman as Ned Logan. Unforgiven is undoubtedly, a quintessential Western and a must for the fans of the genre.

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Eastwood's Greatest Western! - Unforgiven

"Unforgiven" is arguably Producer/Director/Star Clint Eastwood's best western and perhaps his best film overall. It could be very well his last western (I hope not), and if it is he certainly went out on top.

In the town of Big Whiskey a couple of cowboys are being "entertained" by the ladies of the local saloon. Suddenly one of the girls Delilah (Anna Thomson) is attacked by one of the men and is cut up and scarred for life. When sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett (Gene Hackman) refuses to suitably punish the men, the "ladies" led by Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher) pool their funds and post a reward of $1,000 to anyone who will hunt down and kill these men.

Word of the reward reaches former gunfighter William Munny (Eastwood) who is now a widowed pig farmer with two kids, when a cocky young kid called The Schofield kid rides up to his farm and proposes that they join up as partners. Munny reluctantly agrees and enlists his former partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to join in.

Word of the reward has also reached other bounty hunters like English Bob (Richard Harris) who arrives in Big Whiskey first. Realizing that he has to discourage such predators, Little Bill brutally beats up the gunfighter and drives him out of town. In the process Little Bill meets a pulp fiction writer named Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) who is writing stories about the gunfighters of the west. Little Bill is only too happy to provide him with such stories.

Meanwhile the unholy trio arrive in Big Whiskey. Little Bill spots Munny in the saloon while the Kid and Ned are being "entertained" upstairs. Munny has become ill during the trip and Little Bill takes advantage and savagely beats him. The others rescue Munny and take him to safety where the "girls" nurse him back to health. The trio then hunt down and kill the two cowboys during which Ned loses his stomach for such killings and starts out for home.

Ned is captured by the murdered men's friends and is brought into town where he is "questioned" by Little Bill to the extent that he is killed. Munny who had mellowed during his marriage, loses it, arms himself and heads into town for a showdown where..........

"Unforgiven" was honored with several Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman. Eastwood's performance as the tragic Munny was also of Oscar calorie.

Its hard to find a hero in this film. Eastwood, Freeman and Woolvett are after all, bounty hunters. By his own admission William Munny describes himself as someone who has killed women and children and just about everything that walks in his lifetime. Hackman's character has good intentions in discouraging the gunfighters but cannot control his hair trigger temper. The only sympathetic characters are the saloon girls as they try to find justice for their dishonored colleague.

A great western! A great movie!

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Eastwood at his finest - Unforgiven

I just watched Unforgiven, and I would like to say as a younger film-buff, I appreciate the classics (such as this film), more than most new releases today. Unforgiven takes the sometimes mediocre western genre and introduces the moral questions of life. Eastwood and Freeman are brilliant together, and you can also see their vibrant yet melancholy energy also conveyed in the more recent Million Dollar Baby.

This film is definitely deserving of it's ranking in the top 250. Although I found the musical score at times a tad soppy, the startling settings will compensate for any loss in that part. As previous users have mentioned, the running time may seem arduous at first, but the gripping action interspersed throughout the film contrasted with the reflective traveling scenes will keep you engaged. 10/10.

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