There is nothing to forgive; everything is pitch-perfect...

DVDs:

	• Unforgiven [Blu-ray] Beverley Elliott, Frances Fisher Warner Home Video, 2006 average customer review:based on 270 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

OVERrated, but still good

It's all these guys in their later years so kind of goofy to see them as trying to be studs. Hackman is the best thing in the movie. BR continues to miss on the extras.

yummy junk food - enjoy!

As far as grandiose Westerns go, this is about my favorite - along with McCabe and Mrs. Miller. It's a story of two old retired gunfighters, long reformed in their ways, stepping back into the ring for one last hurrah of badness - assassination for hire. The movie builds tension wonderfully, creates a magical vibe of reality (minus the rather cheesy acting of the young guy who plays the "Scofield Kid"), is full of flesh-and-blood, fallible characters with whom you can empathize and whom you can hate - or be sickened by, or root for... And best of all this movie has QUITE the payoff. It WORKS. Mostly Hollywood stinks. Not here. And frankly, Clint Eastwood rocks. He plays his part to the T.

Okay, two more little criticisms:

1) The scene where Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood discuss sex and masturbation came out of left field and deflated the reality of the moment. So cheesy. Morgan to Clint, set in 1880: "Do you use your hand?" WHATEVER!

2) The violence at points went a bit far for me. Yes, it added to the drama and reality of the movie, but how many times does a guy need to get kicked in the bloody face?

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There is nothing to forgive; everything is pitch-perfect...

It's really no wonder it's taken me this long to finally see `Unforgiven'. I've stated before that westerns were never really my thing, and it's not like Eastwood has a huge draw on me either. He's serviceable at best in my opinion, only on rare occasions having his overly gruff mannerisms pay off with brilliance. After the amazing year westerns in general had last year (`3:10 to Yuma', `No Country for Old Men' and `...Jesse James...' all making my top ten of the year) I figured that maybe I should research this Oscar winning classic to see if the films iconic status was justified.

Watching `Unforgiven' has really made me realize that you should never judge a film before you see it, because you never truly know what's in store for you.

`Unforgiven' opens with a sharp pain of brutality as two men victimize a woman. When the sheriff doesn't do anything more than slap the men's wrists the women of the community put out a reward for the men's head. William Munny, a former murderer turned caring father and widower, hears of the reward and, hesitantly, decides to pursue it in order to better take care of his two children. Along with his former sidekick Ned Logan and an overly confident young gunslinger going by the name of The Schofield Kid, Munny makes his way into town with his horse and his gun and the smell of blood.

Eastwood really went all out with this production. The overall feel of the film is very gritty and dark and adds weight to the moral that is brought to the full as the curtains close so-to-speak. The film is violent, but in a repressed sort of way, allowing the majority of the film to ride on the anticipation of bloodshed and only truly rearing its head in short explosions of brutality. This allows `Unforgiven' to become more than just an action film or a bloodbath but creates a film that is as deep and poignant as it is entertaining.

The acting is also golden here. Morgan Freeman seems to just coast through his scenes, but his companionship with Eastwood is unmatchable. He just has such a natural talent that even when he isn't doing anything exceptional he is still amazing. Clint has never really sold it for me. I was impressed with him in `Million Dollar Baby' because I felt as though he made his harshness work to his advantage. He does that here as well. Next to `Million Dollar Baby' this has got to be his finest performance. Gene Hackman steals the whole show though as Bill Daggett, the ruthless sheriff. His savagery is embellished by his sick sense of justification and that makes Hackman's character development nothing short of extraordinary.

In the end I'm pleased to say that `Unforgiven' stands up as worthy of the praise and attention it has received. I can't say if it was the best film of the year (92 was such a fantastic year for film) but it most definitely ranks in my top ten and surely will stand the tests of time as one of the most effective westerns of all time, defining everything that makes the genre what it is. I may not be an avid supporter of the genre as a whole, but when a western is done right it can be nothing short of amazing. `Unforgiven' is done very, very right.

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Border Wars come to Wyoming

"Unforgiven" is a deconstruction of the classical Western. There are no 'good guys', only different degrees of wrong. The killings aren't idealized. They are the filthy business that murder always is. Eastwood's character, Muny, is a man with a troubled past. He was a border raider in Kansas and Missouri during the Civil War although we never learn which side he was on. All we know is that he was brutalized and committed atrocities. His wife, however, tried to set him straight and he makes his life as a poor and simple farmer.

Temptation comes to him in the form of bounty money offerred for the killing of men who cut and scarred a prostitue in Little Whiskey, Wyoming. The prostitutes couldn't get the law to arrest the culprits so they have raised money and, in so doing, they have taken the law into their own hands. Muny, at the urging of a very young, very inexperienced wannabe gunfighter, complies. The result is a series of brutal killings with one culprit shot to death while sitting in an outhouse.

The local sheriff, Little Bill, is, himself, a sadistic man and exacts retribution on Muny's little gang. Muny, all veneer of civilization now completely stripped away, exacts bloody vengeance. It's all so very satisfying which, I'm afraid, speaks volumes about our basic human nature.

This is, in my opinion, an excellent film. Clintwood, as director, shows that his attitudes about who we are may very well parallel those of Sam Peckinpah, as in 'Pat Garret and Billy the Kid' and 'The Wild Bunch.'

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico

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Warner Brothers Unforgiven (Blu-Ray)
Clint Eastwood's film "Unforgiven" is an exciting modern classic that rode off with four 1993 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Director. "The movie summarized everything I feel about the Western," Eastwood told the Los Angeles Times. "The moral is the concern with gunplay." Eastwood and Morgan Freeman play retired,down-on-their-luck outlaws who pick up their gunsone last time to collect a bounty offered by the vengeful prostitutes of the remote Wyoming town ofBig Whiskey. Richard Harris is an ill-fated interloper, a colorful killer-for-hire called English Bob. Best Supporting Actor winner Gene Hackman is the sly and brutal local sheriff whose brand of lawenforcement ranges from unconventional to ruthless. Big trouble is coming to Big Whiskey.

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