Unforgiven (1992)

This is an excellent Western and one that anyone is recommended to watch. The story concerns William Munny (Clint Eastwood), an ageing gunfighter who is talked into taking on one last job – killing a pair of cowboys who’ve mutilated a prostitute. He’s joined by his old friend (Morgan Freeman) and a younger gunfighter (Jaimz Woolvett).

The story is obviously fairly straightforward, but the variation comes from the “revisitionist” outlook. The action is portrayed as messy, uncoordinated, and with victory based on a significant amount of luck rather than gun-fighting skill. Munny himself doesn’t remember much of the detail of his career as a gunfighter, having been drunk at the time. One of my favourite diversions in the film is a dime-store novelist played by Saul Rubinek who has travelled West to write a biography of the gunfighter “English Bob” (Richard Harris), but who then falls into the orbit of the local Sheriff (Gene Hackman). The novelist’s persistent naivety (and the other character’s willingness to tell him flattering stories about themselves) provides an amusing (but exaggerated) representation of the view of the West that the film is trying to dispel.

My slight criticism of the film is that some of the characterization seems a bit over-emphasised or well-signposted. For example, Eastwood insists that he “ain’t like that any more”, and it’s obvious that this is someone he’s telling himself rather than something he really believes. My view is that he repeats it a little too often to make it a little too obvious, so that no-one misses this inference. Similarly the young gunfighter’s bravado and persistent description of himself as a “cold-blooded killer” is a little too forced and makes the reveal that he hasn’t killed anyone a bit unsurprising. That said, these are minor complaints about a film that there’s really very little to find fault with.

I have an old-ish DVD as part of a collection of Clint Eastwood Westerns (Outlaw Josey Wales and Pale Rider) that I don’t think is on sale any more. I’m not hugely impressed by the image quality - blocks of colour like the sky look a bit “artefact-y” at times. I’m sure more recent editions are better though.

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