Rating: 
Summary: excellent movie with no extras
Review: Absolutely one of the greatest westerns of all time! HOWEVER, the DVD leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, it's practically impossible to figure out how to get to the menu page and the box implies that there are two theatrical trailers which [I could not find]! Great movie but disappointing special features.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best westerns ever made
Review: The version of the unforgiven shown here is better than my own copy of the movie on video tape because in Europe the dvd had no extras but the video tape had the making of the movie its an incredable documentry. The movie itself has some of the best character protralys I have ever seen in film from Richard Harris playing a blow hard gunfighter to Eastwood himself showing us the fear and disgust of what he has done with his life so far " I've killed everthing at one time" Hackman is exellent as little Bill the town sherrif and Morgan Freeman rounds out a cast of classic actors who bring the script to life. I highly recommend this movie, as a highlight to Eastwoods career it ranks form me up there with The Wild Bunch and The Searchers.
Rating:
Summary: "We've all got it coming to us"
Review: "All right now, I'm comin' out. Any man I see out there, I'm gonna shoot him. Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, but I'm gonna kill his wife. All his friends. Burn his damn house down."Surprisingly, these words were spoken by Clint at the end of the film. Surely, this isn't the same soft spoken, kind character we've seen throughout the first 3/4 of the film? Perhaps this film is the last great Western. Eastwood's transformation from a softspoken dad to a cold-blooded killer is well played. The film is multi-layered, with many themes including morality with murder, and getting old. William Munny - a notorious killer - has settled down on a farm with his two children. His animals are sick, and times are very hard. When he finds out there is 500 dollars to be made from killing two cowboys - who deserve it - he reluctantly takes it on. He calls on his old partner, Ned, who rides with him and "The Schofield Kid", the young boy who told Munny about the money. They enter the town, which is watched over by an evil sheriff - Little Bill (Gene Hackman). A gritty and realistic tale of how the West really was. Fans of Unforgiven might want to know that the script, at the time of the film's release was actually over 20 years old. Eastwood wanted to wait and make the film when he was older, and could play the lead character more effectively. The special edition 2 disc DVD is a good buy for fans of Eastwood, Westerns, Oscar winners, or just great films. Here are some of the innovative extras in warner's new line of 2-disc sets:
*10th Anniversary Featurette
*Behind-The-Scenes Documentary
*The Career Retrospective Eastwood On Eastwood by Critic/Biographer Richard Schickel
*Interviews with Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Richard Harris
*Theatrical Trailer
*Cast/Crew Film Highlights Correctly chosen as one of the 100 greatest films ever made by AFI.
"I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done"
Rating:
Summary: Another Classic Western
Review: Any movie starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris has got to be good. But I must admit upon first viewing of this movie I was initially a bit let down. As I watched I had trouble coming to terms with my childhood western hero Clint Eastwood being an old broken down, retired killer that couldn't even mount his own horse. The plot is the normal revenge plot in two different ways. First, the aging killers (Eastwood & Freeman) team up with a young kid who is all talk to collect a bounty on two cowboys that cut up a local woman of the night. But when Ned (Freeman) loses the stomach for the killing he rides away. And his caught by the Sheriff Little Bill (Hackman) and beat to death. Upon hearing this news William Money (Eastwood) decides that it is time to get drunk and revert to the his old ways. It is here where we see the Clint Eastwood of old and the revenge style, lone wolf, western movie that made his career as he takes his revent on Little Bill and the town. The movie picked up pace about mid way and my initial let down faded fast as I realized where the movie was heading and the fact that the beginning was needed to set up the great ending. Once again Clint has turned in a classic western. The characters portrayed in this movie feel very real. You can connect with them and sympathize with them, even when they are killing folks or being killed. A great movie and classic western!
Rating:
Summary: Demographs in part explains no good guys!
Review: Recently at the Maui film festival, Clint had a chance to talk to us about movies in general and Unforgiven in particular. To get an academy award for best picture you have to convince first the critics then the academy. By definition, this group of people are old timers whom have always lived within the system. Demographs in part explains why Unforgiven was so well liked by the critic's, and just above average with everyone else. What I understand Clint to be saying is that he was trying to achieve something revolving around the good guy marshal turning out to be the villain. He said villains usually carried no baggage. Gene Hackman was a frontier lawman; he had roots in the community. For "Gosh's sakes," he was building a house. I have seen Unforgiven many times including one of Clint's personal prints. In am sorry, I did not see it as being that great. I have discussed this with many people and I think I know why. First off at no time did we see the lawman as a good guy. Nobody I talked to took the lawman as the good guy. People from our generation do not automatically see the cops as good guys. As soon as we are passengers in cars, we are taught to look out for cops and go for our seat belts on sight. A lot like outlaws of old going for their guns. It was Clint coming in to protect the helpless woman that was the knight is shining armor. The fact that he was a bounty hunter had nothing to do with it. Maybe Clint was in Spain when L.A. had its riots. Or that kind of news does not make front page in Carmel. In any case, the people he played to, saw a different movie than us. They saw "Popeye Doyle," Gene Hackman as a good guy until his villiness became overwhelming. They were sitting there accepting this violence in the name of law and order until they had to realize they could not stomach it anymore. Many of us made that decision a long time before Unforgiven. Maybe they gave Hackman the award for that. Wyatt Earp was accused of Police brutality in Tombstone. He was paid to sneak up on people, hit them in the back of the head to knock them senseless, and then stick them in jail to sleep it off. He collected fines before he let them out. The boys were killed at the OK Corral over a misdemeanor, carrying guns within city limits. Some of them may have even been unarmed when the shooting started. Some were found unarmed after they were dead. Lieutenant Bascom just out of West Point was promoted by the US army, when he executed Cochise's family and friends for a crime committed after Bascom held them in custody. In a Western filmed near Carmel by Marlin Brando, Karl Malden plays a lawman with a lot of baggage, a wife and a kid, but we do not see him as a good guy. Somehow, I did not see this Western as different. Our Hero was hired to do a job. He recruits a force of heroes, meets the helpless villagers. Overcomes the evildoers. Is thanked by the villagers. Utters an oath as he is leaving that if anyone hurts the woman he will be back and get them. Great Western, but people I talked to did not see at as very different from ordinary Great Westerns.
Rating:
Summary: Now this is a western
Review: You can tell right away that this is not going to be typical Hollywood fare from the beginning. Please take that as a compliment. The story is about a group of prostitutes in a small Western town in the 19th century. A customer with not a lot under the hood overreacts to his rent-a-mate's comment on this and slices up her face with a knife. After the sheriff shows up and gives less than a slap on the hand for this offense, the ladies get together, pool their money, and get the word out that they'll pay a reward to the party that brings a more "eye for and eye" to the cutter and his companion. Now it's not this original scene of violence that makes it special. It's the portrayal of old Western life that does. While the otherwise masterful "Lonesome Dove" has one of the most beautiful faces in movies in Diane Lane as it's prostitute, the ladies here are, for the most part, very ordinary looking. More than that, they portray a weariness that shows that their life is not that easy. In the hands of other Hollywood powers, the ladies would have been Charlie's Angels. Cut to the existence of the movie's main character, played by Clint Eastwood. He's a former outlaw and killer, reformed by his now dead wife, and faced with the responsibility of raising two children. The only thing good that can be said of his home is that it's slightly better than the pen where he keeps the hogs he raises, and that's not saying much. The Ponderosa it ain't. What Clint Eastwood seemed to want to do in his directorial masterpiece is to turn everything he represented in his previous years of acting and turn in on it's head. In scene after scene you anticipate the old Clint rearing back and wiping out half a town just to get an appetite up for breakfast. But time after time we are surprised to see a man who can't even mount his horse properly, and can't hit a target with a pistol from ten feet away. We see that all his lifestyle has led to is wretched poverty. The movie grows on you the more you watch it, and the memorable characters have stood the test of time. Morgan Freeman, as always, brings a knowing weariness in his role as Eastwood's partner. Richard Harris has a terrific role as an English gunfighter who hires a writer to build his own legend, but has it totally taken apart by the sheriff of the movie's central town. And Gene Hackman deserves his Oscar as the sheriff who is somehow portrayed as the bad guy when most of the other lead male characters are in the plot for the sole purpose of committing murder. It is this challenge to our sense of what is right and what is wrong, and if there is sometimes even a difference between the two that makes this a Hall of Fame movie.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Mature Treatment of a True American Art Form
Review: In 1992, when I heard that Clint Eastwood was making another western, I thought, "Well, it's about time!" He hadn't made one in about seven years, since Pale Rider, and a lot of the movies made in the interim were highly forgettable, if not regrettable: Pink Cadillac, The Dead Pool, The Rookie. The first time I saw Unforgiven, I was disappointed. I thought it was drawn out, and frankly, kind of dull! But then I heard the critics rave about it. Usually I liked the movie, and the critics hated it. This time it was the reverse, and it made me look at this movie again. Over the years I've watched it several times, and I've come to realize that this film does stand alone in the larger context of the history of the Western film. Unforgiven is not your typical "Sunday afternoon western," like The Sons of Katie Elder, Rio Lobo, etc. This is a violent movie, as violent as any of Eastwood's previous films. But the difference, as Martin Scorsese has noted, is that this film is really an extended meditation of the nature of violence, and what it does to the perpetrator as well as the victim. Reformed outlaw William Munny, out of retirement for one last job, is not a superkiller like Josey Wales, at least not until he goes back to drinking. (When I first saw this, I thought, when is Popeye gonna eat his spinach?! Well, alcohol is William Munny's proverbial spinach!)Then he kills everyone in the saloon, and isn't ready to stop at that. What makes this western different from others is the total absence of any moral viewpoint, absence in the sense that there is no preaching or judging of the characters or their actions. At the end of the film, Eastwood's William Munny sums it up well as he says to the dying Gene Hackman: "Deserve's got nothing to do with it." Eastwood himself has remarked that along with Jazz, the Western is one of the two true art forms that America has given the world. This film is probably the most mature and unbiased treatment of a film genre that is as much a part of our culture and our self-standing as is the actual historical experience of the American West.
Rating:
Summary: A perfect western masterpiece
Review: This is great filmmaking. The acting of Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Richard Harris and Clint Eastwood is as good as these four greats can get and they are supported by a highly dedicated cast. The screenplay is perfectly written with as much memorable dialogue as some of the greatest films ever made. Quite simply, this is one of the greatest films ever made. The entire film draws a clear definition of William Munney as perhaps the evilest man to ever live and what we the audience sees is a person we can relate to on many levels. In Eastwood's character we see our own darkest sides, our own mistakes and the unintended consequences that unknowingly follow our decisions. At the beginning we see a struggling man looking to avoid the ways of his past, something which he may have seen as the easy road at the time but now is or has been in his self administered rehabilitation with his farm and his children. Here the struggle may be too much to handle and he justifies his decision in returning to his old ways to make it through the impoverished times that have followed his wife's death. The psychology is not obvious in this film but runs far deeper than most films by a mile. We set the stage to see an efficient assassin that has turned around return to the world he did everything to avoid, and return he does. The most incredible dynamic here is that Munney is the clear villain in perspective, but that Hollywood cliche is more blurred here than any other movie I have ever seen (even the Godfather). The man we essentially find ourselves rooting against (Hackman) is a man of the law but ironically we find ourselves caring for the killer played by Eastwood. He is an anti-hero in which we must question our justification in liking him. The idea of revenge seems as natural as breathing in this setting, so we cheer as this killer steps onto his stage one last time to show his would be contenders who is the baddest cowboy of them all. It is what Westerns are all about. In addition, the film appreciates the beautiful North American landscapes like very few films do and does so with brilliant artistic photography and the soundtrack's emotional one string notes add to the raw style of the film. Eastwood's direction suggests a man who truly loves the Western and he is the king of that genre...sorry Duke.
Rating:
Summary: This Film 'unforgiven'
Review: this film unforgiven is good film. i like Clint East Wood specially. he good actor. in old time West, not much rule of law in America and estwood fight the bad guys like a vigilante. we watch 'Unforgiveng' after dinner and its good to just take it easy and see film so you can reely enjoy it. my famile- we recomend this film to you.
Rating:
Summary: Ed, you missed it
Review: The whole idea of Unforgiven is exposing the myth. Films are always fantasy and especially westerns. Good over evil, hard work wins and the bad guy has to coming, are ideals we all love and live by. But its nice to see a film, once in a while, that reminds us of reality. Eastwood even says it just before he kills Little Bill. All that aside, the bevy of stars are well directed and act wonderfully.
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