Unforgiven

Unforgiven; western, USA, 1992; D: Clint Eastwood, S: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Jaimz Woolvett, Richard Harris, Frances Fisher

Wyoming, 1880. William Munny was once a criminal and masterful shooter, but now he is father of two kids, having a bad conscious about his past. His wife, who tought him to be moral, died years ago. In order to get a 1,000 $ reward, set for the heads of two aggressive men who mutilated the face of a prostitute with a knife for laughing at one of their small genitals, Munny rides together with his friends Ned and Schofield Kid to finish the job at the town Big Whiskey. But the two men are friends of the corrupt sheriff Bill, who catches and kills Ned. That makes Munny furious and he kills Bill and all of his friends in a saloon.

Clint Eastwood's last western is also his best. In some his macho roles in various action flicks, Eastwood is almost as irritating as S. Segeal, but with the excellent anti-western "Unforgiven" he truly affirmed himself as an ambitious and intelligent author. That brilliant film, that won several awards, constantly surprises because it breaks all those cliches of the western genre, reminding even a little bit of Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller": among the unusual characters is the main hero, old William Munny, who was once a shooter and a criminal, but is now "retired", a reformed, widowed family man plagued by bad conscience about his wrong choices in past, and who now wants to avoid violence. One of the unusual scenes is the one where Ned asks Munny if he occasionally goes to town for prostitutes, upon which he replies that he doesn't because his late wife wouldn't want that. That prompts Ned to ask him again: "So...you just use your hand?" There are some moments that don't work, for instance the illogical first encounter between Munny and sheriff Bill (aftear beating him up in the saloon, why would Bill just let Munny crawl away and escape outside, and not simply arrest him on the spot?), yet all these complaints are pushed in the background since the more numerous virtues outrank them.

Upon reading the pompous shooter English Bob's biographical book, sheriff Bill deliberately mocks him by misreading his title "Duke of Death" as "Duck of Death". Even other situations are untypical, from the fact that Munny became sick from a fever, up to the scene where one cowboy debates with his colleague if a wound stings less during hot or cold weather, while the dialogues are short and sharp ("You just shot an unarmed man!" - "Well, he should have armed himself if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my dead friend"). Although unsentimental and seemingly conventionally directed, this "late western" is at times pure poetry, fascinating in its patience and careful build-up of the storyline, subtly criticizing violence in portraying the old west as a primitive, depressed place where killing is a dirty job and nothing is idealised—an outlaw who lived in injustice is hired to bring justice to a town where the sheriff who was supposed to uphold justice had been ruling in injustice—where a lot of credit should be given to the amazing, refreshingly realistic screenplay by the underrated David Webb Peoples. An astringent, realistic film, one of Eastwood's finest examples of a mature filmmaker, with a meticulous cast that helps it—while at the same time also giving a great indirect belated recognition to the styles of Leone and Siegel.

Grade:+++