Unforgiven

Rating:
Summary: Indeed " a requiem to the wild west "
Review: I've just finished seeing the film so many had urged me to over the years,and I can tell you this: it was worth it.

In the recent years I've caught a glimpse of the nature of the movie here and there, and the main phrase that repeated itself was this movie is " a requiem to the west". I can say that I completely accept this notion ,for once I see it eye to eye with all those critics.

It seems like a realistic movie, giving the feeling that things could've been the way they're presented. I feel like nobody's trying to fool me ,to sell me another fantasy about how heroic the life of men and women were back then .Instead ,I'm given something different than before, a new perspective from another angel of the events ,difficulties and problems people had to deal with in this life style.

I admired the way the prostitudes were shown, not as objects ,but as human beings, though NOT in the eyes of most of the characters. I admired the character of Eastwood as the sphinkx who regained his old outstanding abilities as a gunman,and did what he had to do at the purifying endind scene.

"Unforgiven" is not intended for one deed ,but for two. and that's ,too,TWO good reasons to watch this film .

Rating:
Summary: Turning the genre on its head
Review: Gone are the lightning-quick reflexes, the heroic gunfighters and the clean death duels. Unforgiven strips all the myth and glory out of the western genre and we're left with a story that rings a bit more true than most other films of this genre.

Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, a retired killer determined to take on one last job to help support his family. As director of the film, Eastwood goes to great pains to differentiate this tale from the many other westerns he's made. The vicious gunfighters in popular lore are revealed most often to be drunken sociopaths who are usually more lucky than good. Munny knows the myths for what they are. He doesn't waste time quick drawing and spraying bullets around the room when careful aim and direct shooting are more likely to win the day...especially with half a bottle of whiskey in the belly and a nice helping of luck, that is!

Fine acting by Eastwood and co-stars Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman, coupled with a terrific screenplay and fine directorial effort also be Eastwood make this movie well deserving of the numerous Academy Awards it won.

This movie doesn't set out to nullify all the wonderful westerns that precede it, but it certainly succeeds at taking a fresh look at one of the more popular genres in American film.

Rating:
Summary: Instant Classic Western -- One of the Best!
Review: Clint Eastwood is perfect as the hit-man hired to kill two men who assaulted a woman in a whore house in this story set in the Old West. One of the "bad guys" (played by Gene Hackman) isn't going to give up easily when he learns that a contract is out on him. -- The powerful plot centers around the emotions and inner turmoils of those involved: the hunters and the hunted. One young man hired to "assist" Eastwood in the job boasted that he had killed many times and it didn't bother him. When he actually did commit murder, the story was much different; he showed instant remorse and tearfully wished he had never handled a gun in his life. The ending is just as shocking as the entire film itself. A great Western, they don't come much better!

Rating:
Summary: "Deserving has got nothing to do with it"
Review: "Unforgiven" has a dark,moody atmosphere and features excellent cinematography.It also features another typically terrific performance by Gene Hackman who won the OscarTM for best Supporting Actor for this role.However,this is not Clint Eastwood's best Western.It seems it won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1992 and he won Best Director honors because he had been around more than 30 years making pictures with a good deal of success and had never even been nominated before,let alone won anything.It was about time he finally got some recognition for his work."Unforgiven" is a politically correct movie,something the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been too concerned about in recent years.The Oscars is a good deal about politics.And,as the late Gene Siskel once said,"The Oscar can be bought".Clint Eastwood's best Western is "The Outlaw Josey Wales" from 1976(the bicentennial year),also directed by Mr.Eastwood and superior to "Unforgiven".In style,tone,music score and storyline,it was a better picture.Like"Unforgiven","The Outlaw Josey Wales" was a hit at the box-office. I saw "Josey Wales" in the theatre when it was first released and later on home video.I also saw "Unforgiven" in the theatre when it first came out and later on home video.To compare the two pictures "The Outlaw Josey Wales" is the definite standout."Josey Wales" was one the only pictures to be shown on all 3 networks,NBC,ABC and CBS in the late '70's into the mid '80's,a sign of big ratings.And, the Library of Congress picked it for film preservation for the ages.Quite an honor.

Also, a picture he directed with a similar theme as "Unforgiven" that I highly recommend is "A Perfect World" from 1993,that came out just a year later."A Perfect World" is not a Western but a crime drama with the theme that the good guys aren't all good and the bad guys aren't all bad.It featured a rare effective performance by Kevin Costner in the lead role as an escaped convict on the run with Eastwood as the lawman in pursuit. "A Perfect World" was critically praised but overlooked at the box-office unfortunately. If you appreciated "Unforgiven" I think you will appreciate "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "A Perfect World" even more.And,remember "Deserving has got nothing to do with it."

Rating:
Summary: Eastwood's Opus. . .
Review: Eastwood hands up his hallmark performance both as an actor and director in Unforgiven, a film that offers an unblinking examination of the myth of the old west.

There are no heroes in this film. Hackman, Eastwood, Freeman, and Harris all portray reformed or semi-reformed gunslinger/murderers, each of whom have found their own way to deal with the dark pall their past acts set over their lives.

Everyone gets set on a collision course when a young prostitute is savagely slashed by an irate cowboy. She survives the attack, and the punishment handed down by Sheriff Little Bill (Hackman)is so inconsequential that the other Bordello girls (led by Francis Fisher) place a bounty on the head of the cowboy. Munny (Eastwood's character) hears of the bounty after being contacted by a brash young gunslinger the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), a relative of one of Munny's former outlaw friends. Munny is eventually drawn into the murder for hire scheme, with dire consequences for all involved.

Eastwood, Freeman, Hackman, and Harris all hand up great performances with a supporting cast that strikes just the right notes. There are no "man with no name" characters in this film. No unbelievably brave characters set against a dramatic western skyline. Instead, Munny is plagued by guilt and regret, and spends more than a little time blaming his wife's premature death on his past ways. Munny has to focus on the fragile existence of his two small children on a failing hog farm to scare up any enthusiasm whatsoever for this mission, and Eastwood's performance of Munny's half heartedness in this regard is superb.

This film has been criticized for its' ending, which has been said to give in to the very western mythology that it was trying to de-bunk. However, I don't see it that way. The violence and the threats of violence are gratuitous, but they usually are when fueled by alcohol and grief. These scenes fold neatly into the story line without hitting any false notes.

Easily one of the top ten Westerns ever made (it's in my top five). Strong buy.

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing, Morally ambiguous
Review: Unforgiven is surely Clint Eastwood's greatest achievement. For Clint fans like myself, it has plenty of great lines to recite. It is a morally troubling film in that the only character who really deserves to die is Clint's character, William Munny. The most compelling character is the excellent Gene Hackman as Little Bill Dagget, the town sherrif, who while he has a bit of a mean sadistic streak in him, is basically trying to keep the peace in his town and will go to any lengths to keep things orderly. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when he humiliates English Bob, aka The Duck of Death, played by Richard Harris. Jaimz Woolvet puts in a good performance as the Schofield Kid, whose boasting masks his lack of gunfighting experience. Morgan Freeman is good as Ned, Munny's old sidekick who tags along with Munny and Schofield but is tormented by his inner doubts about what he is doing. In a sad irony, he ends up dying for the murders committed by his partners. Also noteworthy is Saul Rubinek as the parasitical writer who will latch onto any person who he feels will provide him with a good story. Eastwood's Munny is fascinating in his transformation from clumsy pig farmer in the film's opening to a fearsome avenging angel at the end as he rides off in the pouring rain to the sound of the menacing music.

If you are looking for a rousing adventure story, then Unforgiven will disappoint you, but if you want to see a moody, complex anti-Western, then I highly recommend this film.

Rating:
Summary: Who's Laughing Now?
Review: I walked out of the theate with my then girlfriend and with a straight face predicted that Unforgiven would win Best Picture, and if it didn't, I declared, there was no justice in the world. She laughed at me and called me a macho pig and two weeks later I was eating cold pizza alone in a studio apartment with a sinkful of dirty dishes. Anyway. Unforgiven is a perfect combination of script and cast, a movie that never could have been made even ten years before because Hollywood would not have allowed such a complete debunking of a genre and because only an older Clint Eastwood could have pulled off the hero/anti-hero's existential conflict. Beautifully filmed, written, and acted, Unforgiven finally depicts the west as it may have been, in razor contrast to Eastwood's previous westerns (all entertaining, but never long on believability). Until Blood Meridian is made into a movie (and God I hope that never happens) this is as close as I imagine you would want to get to the west in the late 1800's, and if you can take a little knife work and some cold blooded killings, this is a wonderful movie with many subtle and not so subtle lessons about our common humanity.

Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: The best Western I've seen. Not just for Eastwood, but of all of them. I've read some negative reviews from people who sound as though they expect nothing less than 10 bodies piled up in the first five minutes of a Clint Eastwood film. Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you, but it's apparent that Clint Eastwood's films have come to full maturity. I guess it would be foolish to expect the same of some of his viewers...

Rating:
Summary: Double the rating!
Review: This has to be the best movie of the 1990's! Eastwood, Freeman, Harris, and Hackman are superb! Saul Rubinek adds to the stellar-acting in his role as a visiting "journalist."

This ain't your father's "horse opera." For that, we can be grateful.

Rating:
Summary: A poetic, elegiac and beautiful masterpiece
Review: With "Unforgiven", director Clint Eastwood delivered his best film to date. The Oscars and countless other awards for this film were entirely merited.

Eastwood gives heroism and old Western clichees a backseat and gives his movie a more realistic tone. He destroys the myth that justice always triumphed in the good old west (one of the cowboys that Eastwood shoots actually did not do anything wrong and Morgan Freeman is sadisticly tortured though he did not kill anybody). The film is full of strong, poetic imagery and the performances by Eastwood, Hackman, Freeman and the supporting cast are all excellent. One should also not forget to mention screenwriter David Webb Peoples ("Blade Runner", "12 Monkeys"), whose script is one of the finest in the history of the genre.

"Unforgiven" proved that many critics underestimated Clint Eastwood. He showed that he is able to make a subtle, haunting and intelligent film that is also entertaining. It's a pity that he did't make any Westerns after this one. Maybe he thought he couldn't top it. If you look at it that way, who could?