Unforgiven

Rating:
Summary: The finest Western of our generation
Review: Like most great Westerns the moral ambiguities of this tale make it worth telling. Is Clint the sociopath who's killed about everything that crawled on this earth, or the widowered haunted by the death of his beloeved wife, trying to do the best for his kids. Spectacular performances by all the major players, a wonderful script, perfectly paced direction, and Clint's willingness to look like he got the crap beat out of him (which he did)all combine to make this a memorable film.

Rating:
Summary: A western steeped in reality
Review: An old, retired gunman named William Munny (Clint Eastwood) reluctantly accepts a job to kill a couple of young men who cut up a hooker. Munny, his old partner (Morgan Freemen), and a "hot shot" young kid (Jaimz Woolvett) set out on their journey. The only thing that stands in their way is the ruthless sheriff (Gene Hackman) of the small town where the criminals dwell.

"Unforgiven" is a unique western in that where most westerns glorify violence and murder, "Unforgiven" examines the psychological effects of violence, the finality of murder, and fragility of life. Several of the deaths are drawn out and made quite unpleasant without being gratuitous. This gives the viewer time to think and reflect on how easily murder can be committed and the impact it has.

The film is meticulously paced. This leaves the filmmakers time to examine the film's themes and develop its characters, who grow to break free from the western clichés. Eastwood sheds his tough guy persona to play a man who was once a brutal killer but has now grown weary of death and murder. This mirrors Eastwood and his career nicely. Early in his career, Eastwood played hardened gunslingers, but now he has matured in roles much like his character. Jaimz Woolvett plays The Schofield Kid, a character who on the surface, appears to be the typical, cocky gunslinger, but is actually a richly developed character with many unseen truths. Gene Hackman and Morgan Freemen give strong performances, while Richard Harris steals every scene he's in with his grandiose presence.

The impeccable period detail adds greatly to the realism in "Unforgiven". The lack of vibrancy in the film's color palette and the heavy use of shadows greatly contributes to the state of the characters and the heaviness of the subject matter.

"Unforgiven" is a gritty western steeped in reality. Superfluous gun fights are not to be expected. It is very much unlike Sergio Leone's operatic westerns, which are wonderful films in their own right. "Unforgiven" won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1992, of the nominated films, it was a very much deserved win.

Rating:
Summary: Many Unforgiven
Review: Those who are fans of Clint Eastwood know that when Clint makes a movie, he is always saying something about what he feels a man should be. "The Unforgiven" in many ways, is one of his best movies and one of the most visual in its depiction of what a man is, and especially, what a man was in the Wild West, and the transitions that man tried to make, sometimes successfully, and sometimes not.

His morality is pure in this film. He is an ex-gunfighter who has seen the good way of the Lord, thanks to his wife. He is in some financial difficulties, and so, he takes a job that is a "kill for hire" job. The film portrays beautifully, the conflict within a man, as he faces the option of actually killing another man. In several ways, Clint makes this point.

And while Clint and his partners get paid, it seems a very bittersweet ending as in the process, the great tragedy of the loss of his friend's life to torture occurred. So little is known really about what makes a person do some of the things they do, and yet, Clint makes these almost ephemeral feelings come to life visually, in this film.

In some ways, perhaps Clint's very best film, "The Unforgiven" is not only a wonderful "period piece" but also, truly a statement on the character of people.

Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: Hard to put Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Gene Hackman together in a movie with a moral issue at stake and not come up with a sure winner. And that?s what The Unforgiven is: a winner. Hackman plays the sleazy and sadistic local sheriff of Big Whiskey, a town somewhere in the outback of Wyoming where the local prostitutes are determined to seek revenge on the guys who maimed one of them - and they've pooled their savings and have offered a bounty. Eastwood and Freeman, old partners, have retired but, down on their luck, they are persuaded by circumstances to take aim on the bad guys one last time. Then, when they meet Hackman's style of resistance, it becomes bigger than just a bounty hunt; it turns into the usual Eastwood confrontation: Good vs. Evil.
A winner, not to be missed. All the Academy Awards it won were not a mistake.

Rating:
Summary: Dignity in Twilight
Review: By the time this film appeared (1992), Eastwood had already established himself as one of the most gifted directors. His talents behind the camera were first evident, and impressive, in Play Misty for Me (1971). Unforgiven received an Academy Award for best film, as did Eastwood for directing it. So many memorable characters which include Bill Munny (Eastwood), Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett (Gene Hackman), and English Bob (Richard Harris). What I find most interesting is Eastwood's willingness and ability to portray an old widow, far past his prime, who reluctantly agrees to accept an assignment to earn some much-needed money for himself and his family. Munny (obviously, no pun intended) enlists the aid of his friend Logan. They are joined by the self-described "Schofield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett) and proceed to a town under the absolute control of Daggett who, unlike Brian Dennehy's character Cobb in Silverado, can be personally quite appealing but is nonetheless every bit as formidable. (I shall never forget Daggett's dying words, "But I'm building a house!") In my opinion, the plot really is not especially important. The film's greatest strengths are found within the meticulous development of various characters, a process under Eastwood's sure direction which is gradual and both subtle and substantial. Perhaps the character of journalist W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) is necessary to expedite the exposition but he seems to add little else. However, all others among the supporting cast are essential.

Unforgiven can be categorized as a "western" but, in my opinion, it transcends that genre as it examines how the reality of an old man's vengeance is far more significant than the myth associated with his earlier adventures. Near the end of the film, "Little Bill" must deal with a Munny who is, not with someone who once was. The fact that Munny prevails reveals much about him...and perhaps about Eastwood and others who in later life, like Tennyson's Ulysses, "strive to seek, to find...and not to yield."

Rating:
Summary: Be careful
Review: I am a HUGE Clint fan, but I like his older stuff better. I don't doubt that this movie is a western of the better cut, but I had a hard time getting through the first few minutes.
... It probably couldn't be handled by some of the old western fans.
...
Don't watch this one with your kids, but if you have a thick skin, go for it.

Rating:
Summary: The Western As Film-Noire!
Review: What most strikes me about this film, given the fact it is essentially one of the best and most thoughtful westerns ever filmed, is the unexpected level of thoughtful comment it makes about the underlying effects of violence for everyone that encounters it. Clint Eastwood wanted to make this film his coda for what he thought was an accurate and faithful portrait of the west, violence, squalor and all. Of course, in so doing, he succeeds beyond all reasonable expectations. Clintwood plays the central character of William Munney, a reformed alcoholic ex-gunslinger who is miserably flailing about in vain as he attempts to continue along the straight and narrow path he has maintained to remain on since his reformation, and he is a flop as a dirt farmer, left alone to raise his two children after the death of his much-adored wife. When the notion of a way out is thrown unexpectedly in his lap, it takes him little time to recognize the opportunity as a lifeline must grab in his desperate circumstances. Unfortunately, it means he must regress to all of the horrors of a life his wife had originally rescued him from.

Eastwood is supported by one of the most creatively talented casts in recent memory, from Gene Hackman playing his protagonist, the corrupt sheriff Little Bill Daggett, to Munny's old trail companion Ned Logan, underplayed masterfully by a mostly stone-faced Morgan Freeman, to a egocentric young killer-wannabe, played convincingly by a youthful Jaimie Woolvett. Richard Harris is also excellent as an English gunfighter, as is Saul Rubinek as an over-eager and somewhat naïve yellow journalist who aims to make his journalistic bones in the literary world by writing stories about Little Bill. Yet amid all the action and carnage, one of the most memorable (and profound) scenes in the film consists of a simple conversation between Eastwood and Woolvett, in which Eastwood wastes no words describing the horror of killing someone, thereby robbing the person of all he is and all he ever can be. In the electric silence that follows, one begins to realize what Eastwood is really talking about, and it isn't just about the wild frontier. Another comment later on to his protagonist Little Bob is similarly something one has to experience to appreciate in terms of its philosophical import.

Of course, Eastwood uses the camera to great cinematic advantage, employing every aspect of the local topography to shower us with both a mind-boggling backdrop by way of the landscape itself and an epic drama threading toward its fateful conclusion in the dust-filled trail ways and smoke-filled saloons native to the area. This movie must mark the last of a long series of progressively more sophisticated and memorable Eastwood epics portraying the west and its settling, for it is hard to see how he could improve on this film, which is certainly going to become a classic among western films. There is little doubt that this is a captivating, thought-provoking, and worthwhile movie, and one I am sure you would want to have in your library of films. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Hitting his 60's and still scaring the pi$$ out of bad guys!
Review: Westerns dont get any better than this. Period.

Rating:
Summary: Western Masterpiece
Review: A lot of critics and movie fans call Unforgiven the greatest Western ever made, and I am inclined to agree with them. Now, that is a hard thing to say, concerning any genre, especially this one. Eastwood himself would probably disagree, promoting The Good, the Bad, the Ugly instead as the paramount achievement in Western movies. The reason why I would propose Unforgiven's dominance over these other movies is because it is so real, so fundamentally grizzled and cut. Unforgiven is the antithesis to the old six shooter popcorn Westerns, where heroes like John Wayne or Ronald Reagan would come sweeping in, heroes large than life, and do away with some evil group, be they outlaws or Indians. That's barely a western, because that was not the west. The frontier west of post Civil War America was a hard-bitten place where settlers scratched out an often treacherous and unstable existence. Crime was not as prevalent as the media would have you believe, but it could be rampant, and the violence it caused is shocking to our modern sensibilities. That is why I like Unforgiven the most, it does not sugar coat it or its characters, it presents killers as they are and a lawless land as what it was.

Eastwood plays a haunted man, a man who struggles to raise two children on a pig farm in Wyoming. His past is known to only a few, and he struggles to keep it that way. As the movie goes on, we learn that Eastwood was once a vicious killer, murdering for hire and because he was so inebriated. Converted by his now deceased wife, Eastwood does everything he can to forget that life, and live on the straight and narrow. This attempt is ruined when a young killer comes to him with a proposition. A prostitute has been brutally assaulted, and justice has not been done. Her friends put together a collection, and word it sent to various assassins. Kill the attacker, make a thousand dollars. Eastwood is reluctant, but realizing he needs the money, he decides to give it one final shot. On his way, he links up with his old friend and partner, played by Morgan Freeman, and the two head off to track the target and collect their pay.

Standing in their way is the fearsome sheriff of Big Whiskey, played by Gene Hackman. Hackman's character rules the town with an iron fist, smashing any opposition to him and his rules with psychopathic glee. He was willing to look the other way on the assault on the prostitute, but he will be damned if he lets assassins congregate in his town. Hackman makes this horrifically clear as he confronts "English Bob", a well pedicured hitman played expertly by Richard Harris. Hackman, Eastwood, and Freeman are on a collision course, and when they meet, it's acting and action at its finest. Secrets are revealed, and we see the tempting nature of violence for profit. The biggest revelation, however, concerns Eastwoods character, who learns that no matter how hard you try, you cannot escape from your past.

This movie is so good because it has two great ingredients, Eastwoods cast and his directing. The cast is, of course, legendary, and people like Hackman do nothing but take their reputations to new levels with performances like this. Hackman is especially effective as Little Bill, the sheriff of Big Whiskey. He is the classic interpretation of justice run wild on the plains, with no oversight or control, where a man of violent temper and brutal action is free to shape the town in his image. Eastwood's role as a deeply troubled and mentally scarred killer is also an amazing thing to watch. The directing is also spectacular, with wonderful but dark landscapes and weather patterns used to a delightful T. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Moral Drama
Review: It has been a while since I have seen this film, but the storyline and music refuse to leave me. This film explores some of the most fundamental Christian themes - the power of a now-dead woman's unconditional love that changed William Munny from a ruthless killer to a penitent, devoted, family man, and society's unwillingness to forgive, including inhumanity in the so-called name of justice. In some ways, it parallels Les Mis, but then probes deeper into themes dealing with the power of change, natural consequences, and the fallen nature of man.