Film Review : Unforgiven by Clint Eastwood ( 1992 )

The Best Western ever. Or is it ?

Film Review :  Unforgiven by Clint Eastwood ( 1992 )

Unforgiven has been called an 'anti-western'. This truly great film seeks to overthrow some of the myths of the Wild West. It does so in convincing and masterly style.

Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, an old reformed hell-raiser turned pig-farmer, struggling to raise two kids alone. When a young gunslinger, The Schofield Kid,  ( Jaimz Woolvet )  tracks him down, the prospect of a semi-righteous mission with a big pay-off seems enticing. Munny lives in poverty. His pigs have the fever. But what will be the consequences of resurrecting the terror that was once William Munny ?

Eastwood decides to accept the offer, and along the way picks up his old partner Ned ( Morgan Freeman ). The three men are headed to a small armpit of a town to avenge (and of course be paid for the task ) the mutilation of a prostitute by a cowboy customer. But the town Big Whisky has a Sheriff, an old hell-raiser himself by the name of Little Bill, magnificently played by Gene Hackman. Little Bill has already dealt with the issue in his own way ( unsatisfactorily ;  hence the bounty put on the offending cowboys by the prostitutes ) and he wants no vigilantes in his town. Thus the stage is set for an epic confrontation. Except it isn't really epic in the traditional sense. Before Munny, Ned and the Kid arrive, Little Bill has already met and dealt with 'English Bob' and exposed some of the old myths of the West. When English Bob loses his cool, his Queen's English disappears and his true working class slang splutters forth. " You're all just a bunch of bloody savages ! " he rails. Indeed Bob, all of us are. Before the movie is done, more facades will be exposed.

Little Bill is on a mission to tell the truth of what the Wild West was really like ; dictating memoirs of some sort to a writer ( well played as a slippery hack by Saul Rubinek ). Problem is, Bill may well find that his own version of events will itself be overturned.

Little Bill. He ain't so little. And he's got back-up.

The first encounter between the vigilantes and the cowboys tells you this will not be your usual western. It's awkward, painful to watch, and has the ring of truth. Nobody dies well, or kills well for that matter.Until the grand finale, myth after myth is taken down. The young Schofield Kid is the foil by which many of these myths fall, both as an agent and witness. At first he finds Munny does not remember, or will not remember , the deeds of the old days ( Munny asserts that he was simply drunk all the time ). Later, after some killing has been done, he confesses to Clint : " It don't seem real." Woolvet, by the way, is outstanding as the Kid, proving sometimes good things do come out of Hamilton, Ontario. You would have pegged him to go on and be a star, but it didn't happen. Nothing in this film quite turns out the way you expect it, and most of the time that is a good thing, but not here.

Who ? Jaimz Woolvet. Whatever happened to this guy ? 

This is a performance by Eastwood as actor and director that matches Million Dollar Baby and Gran Turino. Eastwood as Munny is a grizzled old veteran paying for the sins of his younger days, maybe both as a character and an actor.  It's as if Clint is making up for all those moments in earlier action movies that made killing look easy and glamorous. This isn't Dirty Harry in a suit in shiny San Fransico ; this is Munny in an old raincoat looking like crap and covered in pig-shit. But it's real. Hackman and Freeman are on fine form and complement Eastwood brilliantly. This trio of titans are in their prime as actors. The supporting cast is excellent too, particularly Frances Fisher as the de-facto leader of the prostitutes. The filming was done in Alberta, and the bleakness of the landscape adds to the harsh truths of  the film.

There's mud in yer eye.  Other one too.

The final showdown captures all the brilliance and message of the film ; it's tragic, farcical and messy, just like real life.
Yet all myths have a grain of truth, and William Munny is here to remind us of that truth.
Amen to that.

Memorable Quote : "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."

Images courtesy of Warner Bros.