UNFORGIVEN

My dad has always been a huge fan of Westerns. If there’s nothing else available to watch, he’ll tune in to a western… even if he’s seen it numerous times before. Me, I never much liked them. I always felt they were hokey and predictable. The characters were almost always very one-dimensional. Unforgiven changes that. This film peels away the sanitizing that films (and TV) have always applied to stories of this genre. This was a captivating story from the moment it begins until the moment it ends. The characters are all flawed. The good guys aren’t just the good guys, and the bad guys aren’t just the bad guys. The women of the West are shown as true prostitutes, not dancehall Miss Kitties. It is directed by Clint Eastwood (who is also the main star), who consistently does a great job of dealing with the intricacies of morality in his films.

The grandeur of the open west is exploited to the fullest, and it is a magnificent experience. The rugged yet beautiful terrain is a wonderful metaphor for the rugged, yet endearing, main character, William Munny. Munny is a former outlaw, murderer, and drunk, who is now leading a somber life as a farming widower raising his two children. His wife doesn’t get a single second of screen time, and yet her presence is felt throughout the entire movie.

Through circumstances established in the first few minutes of the movie, Munny finds himself teaming up with another former outlaw, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), to assist some prostitutes in dispensing justice against two cowboys who have brutally disfigured one of their ranks. In order to do this, Munny and Logan find themselves in opposition with Little Bill Daggett, the local sheriff who is intoxicated with his own self-importance. Daggett is played by Gene Hackman who delivers a performance worthy of the Oscar he received for it.

This film is one of many that have made my 2020 quest to see all Oscar-winning Best Pictures totally worth the time needed to accomplish that task. This one will stay with me.