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Rating: 5 out of 5
Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven is an excellent film that brings back the old school western feel and film. Yet, it is a film that goes beyond the typical western film and places more on the story and characters. A film that shows what happens when a famous gunslinger gets old and leaves his former life behind to start a family and become legit. After many years away from the violent lifestyle he once led, ones’ reputation always seems to catch back up with.
Eastwood seemed to choose this time period as it was a reflection of his own life. Maybe that is how he came up with the concept and story for Unforgiven. He was just looking in the mirror one day and said, “Damn, I’ve gotten old now.” Eastwood was in his 60s when this film came out. Yet, that is what’s so great and intriguing about this film. There are many films where there are old-timers that still try to be cowboys/gunslingers, but has there ever been a story where the main character is the one that is the old-timer. Usually, the main character dies or just rides off in the sunset, never to be heard of again. Just think about it. Just think about it, ever wondered what happened to Blondie from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. He rode off with his money never to be heard of again. Maybe this movie was the full continuation of that story.
Directed and starring Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven is a film that was dedicated to Eastwood’s mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. Leone directed some of Eastwood’s famous westerns, the Dollars Trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Gotta give props out to your mentor.
Unforgiven begins with a prostitute named Delilah Fitzgerald (Levine), who barely escapes death at the heads of one of her customers. She is horribly disfigured and almost left unwanted. Strawberry Alice (Fisher), the head prostitute along with her co-workers are furious at the treatment of one of their own along with the really light sentence that was handed down to them in the town of Big Whiskey. The town is ruled with an iron fist by the tough sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett (Hackman). Daggett has one primary law in his town that states: No guns inside the city limits. Daggett enforces with fearful, sadistic beatings, and then returns to the riverside where he is building himself a house. The prostitutes band together and place a massive bounty on the perpetrators’ heads. The infamous former outlaw and now hog farmer, William Munny (Eastwood), lives with his two children on a small farm in Kansas while visiting his deceased wife grave. Life is hard for Munny when a young gun slinging cowboy by the name of “The Schofield Kid” (Woolvett) shows up and tries to recruit Munny. Munny, at first, declines but soon decides to take up the Kid’s offer hoping to use the money and not be poor anymore. Munny decides to recruit his old partner Ned Logan (Freeman), for the job. With the past catching up with him, Munny must choose to be a hero or a villain once again.
While watching this film, it becomes clear that the set up is relatively the same as many other westerns. There is a very corrupt sheriff and a righteous outlaw who must stop him. Soon after a while, the story is less about the bounty that the men are trying to get and more about maybe trying to come to terms with there past sins. Yet, sometimes the past sins bring out a person’s most ruthless nature.
One scene that this shows is when Munny, Logan, and the Kid ambush and wound one of the men named Bunting in front of his friends. While Logan loses his nerve with finishing off, Bunting decides to return home. Munny, on the other hand, feels that they must finish the job at all costs and uses Logan’s rifle to kill the man. The second scene is when Munny and the Kid ambush Quick Mike in an outhouse and kills him. Now I don’t know about you, but the last place I want to be killed is with me on the toilet. Is there no dignity in this world anymore?
If there is one scene where Munny looks like he is back to is old ways is the final scene. The final scene of Unforgiven is a thing of beauty. One that brings you back to how a final showdown with a villain should be. Eastwood keeps the intensity as high as possible with this scene. I mean, after being nursed back to help and finding out that his best friend was killed, Munny takes a shotgun in the pouring rain and walks into town. He sees Logan’s corpse displayed in a coffin outside the saloon with a warning sign on him. Inside, Little Bill has formed a posse to hunt down Munny and the Kid. Munny, with the biggest boss move I have ever seen, strolls in alone as Little Bill is giving instructions and clicks his gun handle. Now, the look on everyone’s face is priceless! He confronts the posse, and straight-up kills the owner. The ensuing shootout is an act of western glory.
The final dialogue spoken between Eastwood and Hackman’s characters is the best dialogue that every gunslinger probably had before they are about to die. After being fatally wounded, Little Bill says, “I don’t deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house.” Munny looks on with a stern face, loads his gun, and says, “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it,” before killing Little Bill. One of the greatest final dialogues in all of Western history.
Now the stars of the film play their roles effectively, especially Hackman and Eastwood. Eastwood was his usual self but added more of an essence of age to his character. Eastwood brought the old times in several ways. The first way is when Eastwood’s character first receives his gun and tries to shoot a bottle and misses terribly. Just the way Eastwood squints at the bottle is something to marvel. What does the man do, get a shotgun, and does the job that way? As the story progresses, Eastwood makes Munny for ruthless until he has to take vengeance against the one who killed his friend.
Hackman, on the other hand, was a marvel to watch. Hackman showed that he was a ruthless man and ruled with an iron fist while also upholding his form of justice. This is demonstrated through his one rule and when “English Bob,” an old acquaintance and rival of Little Bill, shows up seeking the reward. Hackman straight-up beats the wholly hell out of English Bob and then throws him in jail. While the man was in jail, Little Bill just berates him and pretty much destroys every story written about English Bob.
Unforgiven is a fantastic western that brings full circle the life of an old gunslinger. One of the greatest western films of all time. Actually, it is just the third western to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Eastwood is at his best while Hackman shows a ruthless side that brought him an Academy Award.
